Educational Suicide
by Mystic Cake
Summary: Almaz makes a HUGE mistake when he votes against Mao, who does all in his power as Freshmen Class Leader to make Almaz regret his vote.
1. Mutual Betrayal

Educational Suicide

A.N.- Yay! First Disgaea fanfic I'm actually going to put effort into is officially started! No important notices other than the fact that's it's probably going to include some OOC's since I have comparatively minimal experience with Disgaea 3…

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Chapter I: Mutual Betrayal

"Mao, are you sure trying this is such a good idea? The menu said the approval chance for passing the strengthening the enemies bill is only 20%, and looking at these election committee members and how much they hate us, it seems unlikely this is going to pass..." Almaz asked timidly, he expected some sort of punishment for questioning 'the great heir-apparant of Evil Academy, Mao', but he got a slightly different reaction than expected for his comment.

"Did I ask for your input, servant? You only speak when spoken to by me, or risk experimentation! As punishment, I demote you to 'slave' status." Mao shot back angrily, Almaz's title immediately changed from 'Soft-Boiled Demon' to 'Mao's Unpaid Servant'. Mao was at first unsatisfied, so the apparantly omnipresent hand of the 'god of title-changing' again changed Almaz's title from 'Mao's Unpaid Servent' to 'Mao's Slave' Mao noticed this new change and thought for a moment, then finally accepted the change since it was exactly what he asked for, if lacking the title changer's usual witty imagination. Almaz noticed the change and mentally cried over it, but accepted it since there were more pressing matters to attend to now and it would probably change to something else when he got closer to his demonic transformation.

Finally Mao continued to answer his new slave's question "Anyways, to answer your question- yes, this is a good idea, because it is mine. We have enough bribery material to satisfy the whole of the committee, should they all show up; but now that I'm thinking of it, there are some problems..." Mao explained as if he were talking to a child, ending with a sort of trail off to make someone ask what he meant by that, someone inevitably asked without thinking.

"Problems? Like what?" Sapphire asked.

"So you also feel the need to speak when I have not given permission? One more of you speak out of turn and you don't get food for a week! The problem being that a very influential member of the committee is going to be present and he hates us and everything we do..." Mao stopped suddenly and gazed off into the distance deep in thought; after a long, silent moment he continued "Anyways, the problem is that he is so influential and powerful that we need _every _other member to vote in our favor so his vote doesn't matter, and that is why we need so much bribery material! Any comments?" Mao finished- everyone assumed that meant they had permission to speak, but still everyone was too afraid; Almaz eventually spoke again.

"Are you certain we have enough bribery items to satisfy _everyone _on the committee but him?"

"Idiot! I don't need to bribe everyone; just everyone that I didn't put on the committee last night! Which reminds me, you three are now honorary members of the election committee, here's some lovely complimentary membership badges." Mao said, offering three small, cheap, and fake gold trinkets to Almaz, Sapphire and Kyoko- one for each of them. Such cheap jewelry is to be expected from demons, they wouldn't dare give away anything valuable that they can keep for themselves, so the membership badges were probably made of some cheap plastic and painted gold; Almaz noticed his badge was made of wood due to its texture and it left a few splinters in his hand when he took it from Mao.

"So who is this member of the committee that is so powerful and hates us so much?" Raspberyl finally asked. Mao hissed at the question for a moment, his hate was evidently that great; a silent minute passed, adding suspense that all led up to the moment he finally said who the hated adversary on the committee was:

"Our own current homeroom teacher, Mr. Redshirt!"

"Mr. Redshirt? He doesn't hate us!" Kyoko blurted out, like most people were about to but she managed to first; this conversation seemed to be turning into a race for whoever could ask Mao the obvious questions first and risk punishment for speaking out of turn, Mao was getting lax on that though, and he let it slide.

"Oh yes he does! Ever since our class put him to sleep, broke his glasses and glued his hands to his podium, he's hated us all with a passion!" Mao quickly retorted with a touch of 'duh, don't you remember?' to make Kyoko feel stupid for asking, taking notice of this, Raspberyl wasn't one to let him get away with such an insult to a friend and fellow delinquent.

"Liar! 'Our class' didn't do that, you did! Mr. Redshirt fell asleep on his own watching us study the art of studying on our own and you decided to do something an honor student would and-"

"Petty details that don't concern the end result, the point is he hates us, and _will _do _everything _in his considerable power to prevent us from getting any stronger!" Mao interrupted impatiently, expecting no more comments to his self-titled genius, but there were many more to come.

"Is that why were trying to pass this bill, to get stronger? Isn't that the least bit dangerous?" Asuka asked cautiously, she was probably the only one left that feared Mao's previous threat about not letting them eat, still he let it slide, Mao evidently forgot about his own threat.

"I don't suppose you have a better idea?" Mao asked rhetorically, even if someone had come up with a better idea, he wasn't about to listen to it since he was completely convinced that his idea was nothing short of pure genius and thus, could not be improved upon. Raspberyl made such an idea, and so did Asuka, but Mao didn't bother to listen to either.

"Those are both time-consuming and won't get us stronger quickly like my plan! So just follow the plan as I have explained and all will be well." Mao ordered as he smiled and walked away from the group toward the center of the meeting room to begin the vote. Almaz, Sapphire and Kyoko took their own places among the desks and each privately brooded over Mao's overly demanding nature, Almaz was the most insulted.

_Does Mao really expect us to vote in favor of this after he insulted us? Why do we even need stronger enemies, anyways? As a future hero, it's my job to stop him from going down the path of self-destruction, and I'm sure Kyoko and Sapphire feel the same, so I'm not going to vote in favor of this, and damn the consequences! Food isn't so important... _Almaz planned in his mind as he watched Mao call over the other members of the committee, very obviously handing out his bribes to the greedy demons.

While Almaz was quite confident that neither of the girls weren't going to vote yea for Mao, he wasn't totally sure, so he glanced at them both for a sign of their disapproval of Mao's actions. Kyoko was fixing her hair and didn't notice Almaz look in her direction and Sapphire gave him a smile and a friendly wave when she noticed him glancing in her direction, Almaz smiled and waved back to her just to be friendly, but that wasn't exactly what he was hoping for.

"PLACES EVERYONE! THE VOTING WILL COMMENCE ONCE EVERYONE IS SEATED!" A very large, random golem boomed at the top of his voice, causing Mao and the members of the committee he just bribed to scramble to their places; it was at this time Almaz noticed Mr. Redshirt's place was right next to him, and that Mr. Redshirt was neither drunk nor sleeping.

_Maybe that'll deter Mao from sending me to the nurse's office after his twisted experiments... again... _Almaz hoped privately as the overseer of the voting began his announcements.

The overseer's job was basically to read the list of who votes when and to look the other way when Mao bribes the majority of the committee. Normally the overseer is also the strongest demon present, but in this case the overseer was the golem who just previously told everyone to take their places, and Almaz noticed his level was less than half of Mr. Redshirt's level of 1,400.

The overseer read down about a quarter of the list of the committee members whose names Almaz never could quite remember, the chorus of yea's made Almaz feel a bit scared off his previously determined course of going against Mao.

"SAPPHIRE RHODONITE, WHAT IS YOUR VOTE?"

_Well, her voting nay will make me feel better about my own self-destructive course. _Almaz thought, both mentally and physically relieved as he waited for Sapphire's sweet voice to make everything better.

"Yea!" Sapphire said cheerfully, with her usual grace that didn't escape Almaz's staring eyes. Almaz made a shocked look that just happened to be directed toward her, she noticed and gave him a confused and slightly disgusted look back, she evidently never even thought of voting nay against Mao and risk not eating for a week or worse, Almaz's look of silent conspiracy before the voting was evidently lost on her.

After a moment of looking like an idiot gaping at Sapphire, Almaz regained his composure and felt reassured at the thought that as a delinquent, Kyoko would never vote yea to grant Mao's dangerous and overall selfish wish of having stronger enemies.

Another chorus of yea's followed Sapphire's vote, further pushing Almaz into the abyss of reconsideration of his vote. Almaz slammed his head on his desk to try and knock some desperately needed common sense into his head- he thought maybe he was thinking too hard; even though it made a loud bang and didn't help at all, no one noticed since it was exactly when the overseer called the next committee member to cast their vote, only Mr. Redshirt noticed, and he did nothing but chuckle softly to himself.

"KYOKO NEEDLEWORKER, YOUR VOTE?" The overseer boomed as Almaz picked his bruised head up off the desk so he could hear her better.

_Thank god- or whoever these demons worship- that Mao put one of the delinquents on the committee last night, she'll never vote yea!_

Kyoko thought for a brief moment, then called "Yea!" just as joyfully as Sapphire did.

Almaz was crushed- crushed like the weight of the whole of the universe was just dumped on his back. For a moment, he thought he didn't hear right, and he denied the fact that she obviously voted yea. _Kyoko_, one of the delinquents whose whole philosophy is to _help_ rather than _harm_, just voted _in favor of Mao _who insulted her not 3 minutes earlier- Almaz didn't believe this strange twist of reality, so he whispered to Mr. Redshirt to ask him just to make sure.

"What did Kyoko vote?"

"Kyoko Needleworker voted yea, just like everyone else so far; it seems that even if I vote against it, this bill will pass anyways. A shame, if even one member of this committee would vote nay, then we could steer Mao off of this dangerous course; perhaps they all want to watch him fail against the stronger enemies, he doesn't seem to be quite so popular as he thinks he is." Mr. Redshirt responded with a delicate touch of concern to fuel the hero inside of Almaz.

_Mr. Redshirt's probably right, I can't let my friend get killed by these enemies! Mao was wrong, Mr. Redshirt doesn't hate him, he's trying to protect his students like a good teacher should! And like a hero, I can't back down just because everyone else did, I've gotta step up to the plate and hit a home run for Mao! _Almaz was invigorated: he would vote nay like he planned.

"ALMAZ VON ALMADINE ADAMANT, WHAT DO YOU VOTE?" The overseer asked in his booming voice, which Almaz was getting quite tired of, although he was quite impressed that the overseer golem knew his full name. With not a moment of thought, Almaz braced himself for his answer.

"NAY!" Almaz yelled gloriously at the top of his lungs as he jumped on top of his desk, making everyone in the room jump a bit off of their seats- it was hard to tell whether this was caused because they didn't expect the volume of his vote, or the vote itself. The whole of the committee began to chatter quietly among themselves, most of their hushed conversations were guesses as to what horrible punishment Mao was going to deliver for such betrayal. After a few moments of chatter, all eyes turned to Mao in the center of the circle of desks to see his reaction.

Mao was stunned silent and motionless, his mouth agape at what he just heard from Almaz- his genius plan was ruined, all because of a wannabe hero! Already Mao was planning the most horrible of punishments for Almaz, simply not eating for a week or his usual experimentation punishments were both far too generous for revenge of this magnitude, he was thinking something along the lines of making Almaz's life a living hell for the next year or so.

_Crush on Sapphire, have you? I'll crush you alright! _Mao gritted his teeth while giving Almaz a glare that would kill most humans, but since Almaz was becoming a demon and thus wasn't totally human anymore, it only injured him mentally as Almaz thought of all of the inevitable horrible punishments awaiting him, but he took some solace in the fact that he was doing the right thing in saving his friend from his own self-caused danger.

As Mao planned his inevitable revenge in his own little world, the overseer slammed his large fists on his podium to make all the chatter stop. The chatter died down quickly, and thus with one vote left, the overseer let the last remaining member vote- Mr. Redshirt.

"MR. REDSHIRT, WHAT IS YOUR- HEY YOU, SHUT UP! DON'T THINK I CAN'T HEAR YOU TALKING AFTER I ORDERED SILENCE! BE QUIET!" the overseer commanded from his tall podium, two ghost members of the committee acted like they didn't hear him, so kept talking. Acting like mighty Zeus punishing those who don't obey his divine law, the overseer hurled a lighning bolt at the pair of ghosts, which missed hitting them both by about half an inch, immediately they shut their mouths.

"WHAT IS YOUR VOTE, MR. REDSHIRT?"

"Before I vote, I must say: Almaz, you are much too gullible to be in the company of demons." Mr. Redshirt said to the young, foolhardy, yet undeniably brave human/demon resolutely standing on his desk next to him to try and save his friend from himself. Almaz was more than a little confused at Mr. Redshirt's comment, so he asked the first question that came to mind.

"What do you mean by that?"

"I vote yea."

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A.N.- Betrayal from a demon, does this surprise anyone? If you were actually surprised by Mr. Redshirt's tricking of Almaz even after that 'good teacher' comment from Almaz, then you should be extremely disappointed in yourself and you should spend more time in the company of demons, or even better, demon teachers.  
Now that I re-read my own work, I think I did pretty good with not making OOCs, in fact, I think I did pretty good with the whole character development of most of the characters I used.  
And before anyone says anything in an angry review, I fully realize I didn't even mention Mr. Champloo, and I did that for a few reasons: 1) I hate him (see my bio); 2) I'm not good with making up lines for his 'food talk' style of dialogue, and believe me, I tried; and 3) it's perfectly plausible that this takes place before he joins, so... yeah, he probably won't be appearing for a while, if at all.


	2. Gathering Data

Educational Suicide

Author's Note- Wow, this story has only been up for almost 2 days (2 days when I started writing this) and it already has more hits than Murderous Gods did over its whole life of about a month or so, which somehow doesn't surprise me since I didn't really try for that one- but this one is inspired by an occurrence that happened to a friend of mine, when Almaz voting nay was actually the deciding vote; I can't remember what for, I do remember that I laughed hysterically at him… Anyways, on to the story!

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Chapter 2- Revenge, Step 1: Gathering Data

Everything else stopped once Mr. Redshirt spoke those fatal words.

"I vote yea" These words played over and over in Almaz's head hours after everyone left the meeting room.

"I vote yea" then an uproar of laughter at Almaz, Mao's laughter being the most distinctive and loudest of all of them; humiliation, Almaz fervently wished that was the beginning and the end of Mao's unspeakably horrible and inevitable revenge, but he knew that it was just a symptom of the plague of curses that was to come for crossing Mao.

"I vote yea"

"I vote yea"

7 hours after the committee left, Almaz still stood on his desk in his paralyzed state, but he was not alone the whole time. Mao still sat in the center of the circle of the desks, an evil smirk across his face, simply staring at petrified Almaz. Kyoko and Sapphire were also still in the room, but both were just exchanging worried looks and wondering how much longer this would last.

Silence, Almaz didn't think 7 hours of waiting in silence would work against him, but it did. With each passing moment Mao was mentally planning each horror that he would unleash for revenge, then nicely fitting each into his self-titled 'Genius Grand-Master Plan of Revenge'. Almaz only gave Mao this chance because Almaz's mind could think of nothing else to do- he was in shock.

Anger from Mr. Redshirt's dirty trick; Sadness that neither Kyoko or Sapphire would side with him; and most prominent over all others, _actual _physical Pain resulting from guessing what Mao had in mind for revenge- all of these unhealthy feelings mixed together would describe poor Almaz's mindset at this time- all 7 hours of it.

Finally Almaz's legs gave in after so much standing that he fell forward onto the floor face-first; both Sapphire and Kyoko rushed over to see if he was ok.

"Almaz, are you ok?" Sapphire asked, mostly apathetic but with a slight tone of concern present in her voice; her kind, sweet voice rang in Almaz's head for a few seconds and snapped him out of his shock.

"Princess? Yeah, I'm ok... _for now _at least..." Almaz said, and the pain came surging back into his head from the imagining of Mao's revenge.

"Well, we should get going; my heart isn't going to open itself and those stronger enemies aren't going to kill themselves!" Mao said cheerfully, just the sound of his voice made Almaz squirm fearfully in his skin, but he realized Mao was right- if the enemies were stronger and Mao got his wish, then maybe for now Mao would only be focused on getting stronger for now and forget about his revenge...

Mao getting stronger... was that a good thing or a bad thing? A mix of both, maybe, since it means that his revenge will probably be put off for some time; but also bad since... Mao will be stronger... and Mao's strength is directly proportional to how painful Almaz's punishment is...

_Maybe if I train harder than Mao, I can get stronger than him; and he won't be able to hurt me! _Almaz thought; and in his moment of hopeful triumph, he thought Mao had overlooked this possibility- he did not; in fact, Mao's revenge depended on it.

_Foolish Almaz, is that a spark of hope showing itself across your face? That fool will probably try to train harder than me and get stronger than me, I wonder if he even can consider the possibility that my revenge has nothing to do with relative levelling? Play right into my hands, little pawn; a most unpleasant visit to Evil Academy this will be for humans... _Mao thought as he turned his attention to Sapphire.

_No- she voted yea like I wanted; Almaz will suffer alone, that'll probably make him cry more anyways! Or will it? I suppose we shall see what my 1.8 million E.Q. comes up with, she may be quite the interesting tool for a greater end, that being my perfect vengeance..._

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"One more time!" Mao called, everyone groaned and whined.

"We've already done it like, 12 times!" Jonas, the heavy knight, pointed out futilely- Mao already knew this, he could count that high.

"I can't continue much more, I'm almost out of SP!" Anna, the healer cried, her pain fell on deaf ears just like Jonas's.

"YOU WILL ALL DO IT AGAIN!" Mao yelled, and all of them reluctantly hoisted up their weapons and returned to the field of battle.

The same battle, done 12 times, all for the sake of training, as Mao continually told them. This actually was the first step of Mao's revenge; but it was a bit more than that, this was also insurance to make sure no one ever tried Almaz's stunt again, or risk doing such rigorous training again. Obviously since it was part revenge, Almaz got the worst punishment out of anyone. Every battle Mao ordered him up front, where he would get brutally thrashed by the enemies, only to be healed within the turn so he wouldn't die; but Anna running out of SP ruined the cycle, so if Almaz were to fall in this battle and be sent to the nurse's office, then Mao would probably return the group to the nurse's office so they all could be healed- in other words, if Almaz died, everyone else would be saved.

Being up front, Almaz got the most kills, and so the most level ups; starting out he was level 30, now he was level 43; compared to Mao's new level of 45 (Mao took most of everyone else's kills, so essentially no one but him and Almaz were levelling up), Almaz was getting closer, considering Mao was level 36 when they began.

_I can do this... I can do this... _Almaz thought as again he charged into the wave of demons in front of him like he did so many times before. The positions of each of the demons arrayed against him, even their normal behaviors and what they were going to do next, just the same as the battle before; everything was calculated in Almaz's head.

A bolt of flame came from the left, just grazing Almaz's left cheek and leaving a slight burn across his face, which did little but add to his already gruesome visage of a battle-weary soldier. Almaz's attention was drawn toward the fire skull standing only a few feet away behind a swordsman, easy prey both of them.

"BLADE RUSH!" Almaz yelled, and in a single deadly strike he had done so many times before in this same situation, both the demons in front of him were slain.

Taking a momentary rest before another demon tried the same tactics, Almaz noticed that Mao was not 5 feet away, fighting off a pair of warriors, one with a sword and another with a spear, and evidently he was struggling with them, as he was backing up a bit after each successive strike. Mao focused a few quick slashes to the swordsman, trying to slay him before he was overwhelmed by them both; but the spearman stabbed his sword arm with a very precise strike. Mao yelled in pain as a reflex, then passed his sword to his left hand and he sliced the spear's tip off, which fell to the ground since nothing was holding it in Mao's arm. The spearman panicked, and took a few steps back, left with only a stick to fight with.

_If I help him, he'll probably just stab me in the back; I've learned on many occasions that demons have no sense of gratitiude- wait, what am I thinking? As a future hero, I'm not about to let a friend stay in such danger, I've gotta help him! Even if this danger is his own causing, and I tried to stop him, I'm still going to help him! _Almaz thought quickly as he rushed to give Mao assistance.

Refocusing his attention, Almaz quickly struck the swordsman before he knew what was coming. The swordsman was killed, Almaz surprising himself at how easy it was, then he turned his attention to the spearman without a spear. Thinking on his feet, the spearman threw his broken spear at Almaz and quickly swiped the sword from his fallen ally's hands, then he and Almaz locked blades for a moment, both too fatigued to overpower the other.

More enemies rushed into the fray, a succubus and two more warriors. One warrior rushed to Almaz, then was stopped by a bullet to his cranium; the other warrior was stopped in his tracks by Jonas, who promptly struck with his large axe and missed.

Mao slashed at the succubus, just grazing her stomach, then she blew him a kiss, and he felt his strength draining- her manipulative abilities over men were too much for fatigued Mao. Mao wasn't one to let a witch like her best him though, and cleverly Mao stepped back to draw in the succubus and line her up with the warrior who was still locking blades with Almaz.

Again the succubus used her deadly feminine magics to drain Mao's strength; Mao was nearly dead, and another drain put him on his knees; then a figure sliced right through her, and she was slain.

As his strength was returning, Mao looked up and there was Almaz, offering his hand to Mao to help him up. Mao slapped away Almaz's hand and stood up on his own, and after noticing the battle was over, Mao walked away.

_Damn hero, where is his breaking point? 13 battles, each of them he was on the front getting pummeled by every enemy! Even though Anna healed him, I know some pain does remain after such quick recovery, and all of that adds up; and still after all that beating he isn't afraid of more? I will break you, hero, but I will probably get broken first if I continue... _Mao considered the possibilities of continuing, then he looked over at his group and immediatly shook his head at that idea.

Jonas was quite dead, courtesy of a large gaping laceration through his head probably caused by the warrior he stopped in the end, someone evidently was kind enough to carry him off of the field. Anna was injured with burn marks all over her body, but otherwise she was ok. The young gun-happy rogue, Samantha, was crying loudly because her leg was broken and Anna couldn't help her since she was out of SP. Both Kyoko and Asuka were dead, Kyoko by a single neat slash to her neck, probably from a lucky critical hit, and Asuka from several claw marks all across her body- probably from a frenzied zombie. Raspberyl and Sapphire seemed relatively ok, just a few scrapes each, but neither had any SP left and both were very fatigued from the continuous fighting. Almaz, on the other hand, looked like a zombie himself- slash marks all across his body, a whole claw was left in his back and a rotten tooth was embedded in his left shoulder, and what looked like a bite mark surrounded with lipstick on his neck, probably from a succubus, and there was a _smile_, of all things, on his face; as Almaz smiled to the other battle-weary members of the freshmen class unlucky enough to be fighting for Mao, most shot back irritated or confused looks at him.

_Crybabies all of you! If I say we're going again they'll probably kill me, if we don't all get killed on the way to the battlefield first; so it's probably in everyone's, and more importantly, my own best interests to go to the nurse's office and stop all of these sniveling babies from crying so much! But I can't leave yet, that damn hero-boy hasn't fallen yet, and that was the whole point of coming!_

"EVERYONE-" Mao announced to get everyone's attention. Everyone glared at Mao, expecting him to say 'one more time' and they were non-verbally saying 'if you say what I think you're going to say, we'll murder you!', but Mao didn't say what they expected him to say.

"TO THE NURSE'S OFFICE!" Mao yelled, and everyone cheered weakly and started to walk or crawl as best as they could back to Evil Academy, Mao ordered the able-bodied to carry the dead and injured, himself carrying none of them.

Furiously Raspberyl, Sapphire, Anna and Almaz delegated who carries who in a hushed conversation; Raspberyl would help Samantha, Sapphire would get Kyoko, Anna carried Asuka and Almaz carried Jonas, despite Sapphire offering to trade.

_Hero, hero, hero; I will find your stopping point, and when I do, you'll wish you never crossed me! I may have failed now, but I've gathered much valuable experiment data, and next time will be much, much worse; I promise!_

_Let's see... at about 5 kills each battle, multiply that by 13 and that's... 65 kills without rest, but since he isn't quite dead yet I'll add another battle's worth, so that's 70 kills around or above his level with no rest; better than the others by a long shot! Jonas only managed 27! I think I need to add a bit more... hero fuel to him so I can collect more data for my perfect revenge! But perhaps my revenge can wait, I must search my heart one last time and get rid of this damn hero title- revenge can wait!_

* * *

A.N.- Yeah, some generic demons pretty much had to be present for training, so I had to come up with names for them; names that I come up with are often terrible, but these are relatively good. Anyways, it's becoming harder and harder to continue this until I finish Disgaea 3 (my friend is letting me play it on his PS3, yay) but I'm still going to try to do a chapter a week, but some may be late (like this one, but this one was just a by-product of using 4 computers to store my work, not because I didn't do the work)


	3. Heart of the Matter

Educational Suicide

A.N.- Ugh, this story is so much harder than I thought it would be when I started. I got a good ending planned, but let's hope I get that far before I decide to scrap the whole thing! Nevermind, just enjoy, and if you could leave a review, that would be much appreciated now, especially one that tells me you like it so far and to keep going! Oh, and a special thanks to Varanus for your reviews :)

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Chapter 3: Interlude- Heart of the Matter

Mao's heart, the constantly morphing dungeon-warehouse that locks away all of Mao's feelings, memories, and passions in a single, convenient-to-access location, just waiting to be changed at any given moment- either by events in the world outside or direct action by whomever dares to search its foreboding depths- not a place to be taken lightly. Mao, Sapphire, and Almaz entered the shifting realm- Almaz and Mao were quite familiar with it, Mao having been through the whole place on many occasions and Almaz on 3 different occasions, all with Mao, but this was an entirely new experience for Sapphire.

"This is so **cool**! I've never been in a demon's heart before! Do you come here often?!" Sapphire asked excitedly as she wildly looked about the ever-changing realm of Mao's heart, not even waiting for an answer to her question; Almaz quickly following her to make sure she didn't do anything she wasn't supposed to.

"Princess, be careful! If you break something important you might scar lord Mao forever!" Almaz warned Sapphire, who took little notice and continued her reckless exploration of Mao's heart.

"Yes, scar me forever, that would be tragic; huh _traitor_?" Mao growled, Almaz took this as a warning and took a few steps away, just to be safe; but Mao wasn't done yet- "Maybe she can scar me so badly that I forget you ever existed, that would be catastrophic wouldn't it?" Mao said, strangely calmly and very sarcastically with a disarming smile on his face to mask his inner fury, which was _very _obvious, and tangible enough to make Almaz take a few more steps away and to keep and eye on him, still just in case.

"Oooh, what's that?" Sapphire asked with a great amount of curiosity, as if she were a curious child that saw something new or shiny, in this case, both. Sapphire was referring to a faintly luminescent small red key tied to a large light purple crystal by way of a rather large iron nail, which was charred black.

Both Almaz and Mao yelled for her not to touch it, Almaz in a cautious tone and Mao in an angry and demanding tone, both were ignored as if she didn't hear them, which in her own world she probably didn't. Immediately Sapphire swiped the key off of the nail and wildly searched about for what it unlocked, like an odd keyhole that seemed otherwise out of place, which there was only one not a dozen feet away.

A dark and foreboding gate of prison-like iron bars wore a lock and keyhole that fit the key perfectly. Much like a prison, it was meant to contain a dangerous power, which didn't cross Sapphire's mind as she rushed over and jammed the key in the lock and turned it until the lock fell to the ground with a loud _bang_.

The iron gate opened slowly, and the room inside lit up with a light from nowhere, revealing that it was an exact replica of the meeting room used by the election committee.

Mao yelling furiously at Sapphire, Almaz was worried that he would probably kill her in a heat of passion for not listening, so Almaz asked a question to move Mao's mind off of Sapphire; even if it re-directed Mao's anger to him, that's what a hero does, Almaz figured- even if he was less of a hero than when he came to the netherworld, losing his title to a _demon_, of all things!

"What's in there and why is it locked?" Almaz asked quickly. Mao immediately glared coldly at him for distracting him, then in a low, dark, and cold voice, Mao answered:

"You are!"

The committee room was arranged in a circle, much like that morning during the voting to pass Mao's bill, but instead of the usual committee members, there were only about 2 dozen Almazes and a single timid-looking Mao wearing a light blue version of Mao's usual clothes sitting in the middle of the circle- no overseer, nor was there Mr. Redshirt, just timid Mao and the many Almazes that shouted only one word- nay. In touching the key and fitting it into the lock, Sapphire caused the memory of the meeting to replay as if it was a movie; exactly as it had happened, even better than any of the three could remember even though it only took place that morning- the booming of the overseer's commanding voice, the ominous chatter of committee members once Almaz voiced his fatal vote, even the quiet whispers of Mr. Redshirt to Almaz during the voting earlier- all was the same.

_Why didn't I vote nay? Was I afraid? Almaz... I'm sorry... but if I voice my feelings, Mao will punish the both of us... If only it wasn't passed... if only Mao didn't blindly pursue his selfish desires of getting stronger that only led to everyone getting hurt in the process... I wish I could recast my vote..._ Sapphire thought as Almaz was humiliated by Mr. Redshirt's vote, wondering to herself why she didn't regret her decision before.

_That princess-girl, I can feel her regret- she thinks her thoughts are safe when she walks my heart! She, like Almaz, has much to learn- perhaps I can use her for revenge after all..._

For a moment, all of the nays stopped as the chorus of Almazes collectively took a breath and let the timid Mao voice himself.

"Please, we must get stronger together... please?" Mao said, so timidly and weakly it may as well have been coming from a mouse, which greatly infuriated the real Mao.

"I'm NOT letting this happen!" Mao shouted as he stormed into the room, his disgust toward his own mirror self was evident, and understandable.

As a new wave of 'nays' was called from the committee of Almazes, Mao used Blast Finger on the wall of desks in front of him, thus breaking the circle and killing a couple of the Almazes in the process, no one took notice of his entrance until he stood in the center, facing his own timid self eye-to-eye. Sapphire and the real Almaz followed him, then stopped as real Mao unsheathed his sword and stabbed the timid Mao through the chest, unsatisfied with his own reflection; the timid Mao disappeared in a cloud of smoke without a word.

"Mao, did you just kill yourself?" Almaz managed to gasp in his shock. Mao didn't answer at first, he simply stood on the cardboard box his timid self had been using and he looked around the room at the many eyes watching him.

The change this caused to the heart was apparant, immediately the Almazes around the room were driven to a deadly fury once timid Mao fell, and even the room was warped into a dark dungeon-like room that made Sapphire and Almaz feel quite uncomfortable. On the outside, the heart took a more bold appearance, its normal color scheme changing from a soft blue to a bright blazing red, if but for a moment.

_There are 18 Almazes left after I killed those 2 entering, so that means there are 20 people in this room right now other than myself; and that 95% of those other people are Almaz, how many of them do I want to kill? 100%, but I think I'll settle for 95%; why I felt the need for that calculation I don't know, but after killing my timid self, I'm feeling quite... unleashed- I could kill an army! How nice that the person I hate most right now is standing in front of me coupled with an army of himself! This ought to quench my thirst for revenge for today!_

Mao smirked in deadly anticipation of what was inevitably to come as all of the committee Almazes drew their weapons- oddly the same as the real Almaz, but their levels were the same as Almaz's was before the training- 30; compared to Almaz's new level of 43 and Mao's level of 45 (Sapphire was the lowly level of 37, she didn't get as much training compared to Mao and Almaz), these cheap copies of Almaz stood no chance, yet they didn't seem to think so, all of them charged with no regard to personal safety straight to Mao, who slew as many as dared come near him, Sapphire killing the remainder (Almaz didn't feel comfortable killing these warped versions of himself).

"Well I feel better, let's go back and get some new armor! Almaz, you can have my old armor again." Mao said very cheerfully and heartily- so cheerfully it didn't seem like it was the same Mao talking- once the massacre of many Almazes was finished.

_I feel so happy, like a weight's been lifted from my shoulders! Everything seems so much brighter suddenly, like someone elected to put up chrismas lights all around my heart, just to make it brighter! Obviously I wouldn't appreciate that person's trespassing in my heart without permission like some kind of... heart parasite, so I'd kill them, after thanking them for their effort... or maybe before... But enough fooling around, revenge starts tomorrow! And I got something good planned!- _Mao

_I don't feel comfortable around Mao anymore... He seemed to take a bit more... sadistic pleasure in killing those copies of me so many times than he should have... frankly I'm surprised he didn't decide to kill me and say he though I was one of them! Please Mao, open your heart soon- preferably before you elect turn to me to ash! Me and Mao need therapy or something, I wonder if they have anything like that here? _- Almaz

_So, a demon's heart reflects all of the memories and feelings they don't want to keep themselves- this is quite a strength, but at the same time, a weakness! If only I could get into the overlord's heart, I could find his weakness... If I recall correctly, I have to be invited into the demon's heart- so how can I get invited into the Overlord's heart...? _- Sapphire

Mao led Almaz and Sapphire back to the heart's version of a nurse's office, all the while Almaz thought about what had happened.

_That place, I get it now! That was Mao's scar in his hear from me voting against him... did it really hurt him that much? Was I really that close to him, does he trust me like a friend would? Maybe that's why he put me on the committee... I feel so bad now, he believes I did this just out of the malice of my heart to deny him what he wants- where did I learn such advanced vocabulary...? Anyways, he must've felt so weak that one of his friends would turn against him like that so the memory in his heart he made himself such a timid weakling at that time... Oh lord... I've gotta make this right, even if I was just looking out for his best interests, which he doesn't seem to be interested in my version of his best interests, which I should've known based on his avid hatred of those delinquents who also look out for his best interests... anyways, I'm still going to apologize, but I'll wait for the right time; after he's killed me several times over it doesn't seem like the right moment right now._

_On a lighter note, if I'm feeling regret like I am now, I can't be too close to becoming a total demon!_

* * *

A.N.- I realize my humor has been pretty dry this chapter and the last (my humor was a bit worse last chapter than this one, in my opinion), but these past 2 chapters were meant as a sort of lead-in to the rest of the story so it'll get much better, I promise. Anyways, I got 4 more chapters planned, each will take place one day after the previous- the first three will be Mao's revenge, the final being the resolution of the fic- of course, this is all assuming all goes as planned, which **rarely** happens!


	4. Something Simple

Educational Suicide

A.N.- Like I whined about last chapter, this story is getting sooo boring to write, I already got the rest of the story planned out, it's just I lack the diligence to actually put pen to paper (figuratively, in this case I suppose it is finger to key) Anyways, I'm sure you all aren't reading this to listen to my whining so I'll just jump into the story that I'm evidently finally typing!

* * *

Chapter 4: Revenge, Step 2- Something Simple

"Mao seemed awfully happy yesterday once he... killed me in his heart about 15 times over, maybe he's forgotten about getting his revenge!" Almaz thought hopefully out loud, the various freshmen around him cackling at his naive hopes as he walked through the hallways pretending not to hear them.

Homeroom was quite the oddity that morning, Mao did nothing but jump around on the desks while laughing maniacally and saying "potion-poison-potion-poison!" about 10 times a second which even frightened Mr. Redshirt. Nothing was getting done, since Mao was wildly jumping around. When Mao was asked why he was doing that, he snapped back at the person who questioned him, threw a chair at them and had them removed from the class- that happened once, but 3 people were thrown out: First Cypher, the mildly insane heretic was thrown out quite violently by Jonas at Mao's command, who ironically was thrown out next by Mao himself for no real reason; lastly was Johnathan, the Blue Skull who dared to sneezed while Mao was jumping around- he was thrown out the window.

During the whole of homeroom, Almaz simply sat in his seat right behind where Mao was normally supposed to be sitting; Anna was right next to him, looking quite worried. Mao finally told everyone to leave quite violently, and the rest of the class left the room and piled into the hallway to the market-place, in the hallway Almaz asked Anna what was wrong, to which she replied:

"I'm worried about Mao- he's taken a hyper-energy sugar concentrate potion I was mixing to give to put in one of the teacher's coffees, he's probably going to be hyper like that all day!" Anna warned, which apparently the whole of the freshmen class heard as they all fled the immediate area for fear of Mao's often unprovoked wrath- rumors already spread about what happened in homeroom, some a bit exaggerated suggesting Mao _killed_ and _ate_ Cypher for asking him why he was like the way he was.

"You're _worried _about Mao?" Almaz asked comically, it was quite unusual for a demon to be worried about anyone or anything but themselves, unless they were a delinquent.

Anna flustered for a moment, thinking Almaz was suggesting that she had a crush on Mao- which she did, but she was quite certain she did a very good job of hiding it- thinking on her feet, Anna came up with a quick response:

"I'm worried for our Class leader, often if they... go missing... then total chaos envelops the school. Someone has to prove they're the strongest to be class leader, so everyone wants to prove they're the best by killing everyone else; this doesn't normally happen when the class leader is being chosen because teachers watch over the fights, but not in this case." Anna explained grimly, doing quite well to hide her feelings.

"Oh, ok, but don't all demons want the chance to be class leader, even you..?"

"I'm not so shallow that I'd kill Mao with a _sugar potion _to have a chance to be class leader! I'm not even that great of a fighter!" Anna cried, a bit more emotionally than she would have liked, but Almaz took her point.

"Ok, ok sorry; we should get going to lunch, I'm pretty hungry." Almaz announced for reasons he couldn't fathom, but a subject change was welcome on both sides of the conversation.

"You realize Mao probably isn't going to let you eat after that last committee meeting, right?" Anna asked rhetorically, Almaz couldn't be that stupid.

"After everything that's happened, I'm pretty sure Mao's forgotten about the whole revenge thing- at least I hope he has..." Almazanswered, to which Anna shook her head.

"Something makes me doubt that, but hope if you want." Anna said. _It's not like he's able to do much more than hope at this point... Mao's going to _murder_ him in his sleep, painlessly if he's lucky..._

"I suppose we'll see, but now- TO LUNCH!" Almaz announced as he sprinted off to the cafeteria, followed by a less than enthusiastic Anna.

* * *

Lunchtime, the second most chaotic time in the whole normal school day, only to dismissal. Students often only bought food to throw it at other students or teachers- food that was still frozen solid since the demon cafeteria staff were too lazy to cook it, assuming that they even showed up to work that day- students looted the pantries daily of anything edible, some of that food _might_ actually be eaten. Obviously the actual cafeteria was empty except for Raspberyl, Asuka and Kyoko; since everyone else ate in the hallway, classrooms or essentially wherever they felt the need to eat that day, some especially daring students even ate in the rafters of the gym while throwing their utensils at the gym coach who often slept on the job- his temper was legendary, even among demons.

Almaz, like the delinquents, most often ate his food in the cafeteria; and on the rare occasion that she felt like studying healing magics to not get thrown out of Mao's class, Anna ate in the cafeteria to escape the chaos in the rest of the school.

Before entering the cafeteria, Almaz surveyed the room carefully to make sure Mao didn't set any traps or anything of that nature, he could find none, in fact the cafeteria was empty save for a blanked that Raspberyl, Kyoko and Asuka were eating on (there were no tables or stools) they all waved cheerfully at Almaz, who waved back and assumed it safe.

"Can I have a sandwich, this time preferably without something living in it?" Almaz felt the need to ask the very... portly pig chef who was sleeping quite comfortably on the floor of the kitchen. The hog-chef grunted angrily, but otherwise showed no sign of wanting to do his work, as usual. At this time Anna entered the kitchen from the hallway, swiped what looked like a simple bottle of water, and proceeded to the cafeteria to 'eat' her 'lunch'.

"Is that really all you're going to eat?" Almaz asked, while the pantry was looted not 10 minutes earlier, it still had a bit of food still in it, plenty for Anna and Almaz to both have a good sized lunch each; Anna evidently wasn't hungry. Anna looked back at Almaz standing in front of the ransacked pantry, then at her water. Something in the water bottle evidently caught her eye, as she examined it closer, so close her nose almost touched the bottle; disgusted she elected not to drink the water either.

"Yeah, you're right..." Anna said as she tossed the water back at Almaz, who caught it as she walked to class, evidently to study more healing magic.

"I'm right about what? Suggesting she eat more as she walks away with nothing?" Almaz wondered out loud as he looked at the water she didn't want.

Almaz noticed Anna staring at the water bottle at pointblank range and evidently finding something wrong with it, but when Almaz inspected it, he could find nothing wrong with it, so he took it and a few scraps of bread and some mutilated mystery meat to make a sort of sandwich, and he proceeded out into the near-empty cafeteria. Almaz was going to sit alone, but Raspberyl rushed over and after a couple of minutes of nagging him to join them, she successfully dragged him over to the mini-picnic.

"Good day, Fake Hero; are you having a ood day?" Asuka greeted Almaz as if he was a close friend, which was very nice to hear in the ocean of rude demons that normally insulted him for a greeting or just belched.

"Yes, I'm good today, thank you." Almaz said cheerfully.

_With friends like these... wait... how does the rest of that go..?_

Almaz immediately took a healthy drink from his water than Anna gave him, but he noticed it didn't quite taste right. The water had a slightly sour taste to it, and Almaz couldn't swallow it. Almaz held the water in his mouth for about half a minute, trying to swallow it before it began to _burn _his whole mouth. Almaz panicked it this burning sensation, which progressively got worse; not wanting to spit it out in front of the girls, Almaz rushed to the bathroom, not even stopping to see which bathroom he was entering.

Almaz rushed to the sink and spit out the water- what was once the clear liquid he drank came out crimson. Almaz panicked and looked at his teeth in the mirror- his lower gums receded about an inch and two of his bottom front teeth fell into the sink, his whole mouth was coated in red and tasted of blood.

_What was that? Was I just poisoned? WHAT IS GOING ON!?_

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING IN HERE!?" A feminine voice shrieked, Almaz turned around and there was Anna, her staff on the ground next to her as both of her hands were clenched into fists. Anna punched Almaz square in the face before he had the chance to register what he had done- he entered the wrong bathroom. The punch was so forceful that it sent him sailing out the door with a bloody nose and a still slightly burning mouth, also knocking out another tooth in the process.

Laying dazed on the ground, Almaz looked up at the bathroom door, expecting to see 'girls' bathroom' to show how much of an idiot he was- but that wasn't what was on the door. Almaz saw 'boys' bathroom' on the sign on the door, and he was certain that was the one he was just knocked out of, the trail of blood from his mouth dripped midair making a trail from the inside of the bathroom to Almaz on the ground which now led right to the closed bathroom door; further evidence that _she_ was in the wrong bathroom came when he heard Anna shriek.

"EWWWW! THERE'S BLOOD EVERYWHERE!!!"

Almaz was more than a little irritated that he was thrown out of the boys' bathroom by a girl who wasn't supposed to be in there because she thought he wasn't supposed to be in there, so he stood up and stormed back into the boys' bathroom.

"Why did you do that!? This is the BOYS' BATHROOM!" Almaz said sternly, barely holding himself back from yelling.

"IDIOT! THIS IS THE WORLD OF DEMONS!! WE ARE EXPECTED TO BREAK RULES LIKE THIS!" Anna yelled back, making Almaz think for a minute about why he was wrong.

_Demons do everything they can to misbehave, evidently including using the opposite sex's bathrooms...? That's so... WRONG! There's even urinals in here, do the girls use them, too? _Almaz thought to himself, after a minute of disgust he came to terms with this odd custom, despite it's obvious... flaws

"I'm sorry, I didn't know- I'm human!" Almaz pleaded, hoping it would lessen her fury, since it _was_ true- key word being _was_.

"Oh yeah... right... well I'll be generous for a first offence: I'll let it slide if you clean up this bloody mess! AND... be my unpaid servant for a week, while still being Mao's slave, which'll probably tough to disguise that, but I'm sure you can do it" Anna offered, carefully stepping away from the blood, some of which was on her robe.

_Why!? She caused this to happen! There's no way I'm going to accept this!_

"Deal." Almaz said, at the last moment reconsidering due to what happened last time he said no to a demon's proposition.

* * *

So much blood, it took Almaz an hour to finally clean it all up, then he washed his face in the sink in the boys'/girls' bathroom, all under the careful supervision of Anna; fortunately, no girl came into the bathroom the whole time.

"Finally, I'm done..." Almaz said, relieved and forgetting the other part of the deal.

"Don't forget Almaz, you made a promise!" Anna said as she placed a slavery contract and a pen in front of Almaz. After reading it and confirming it was a week like their deal was, Almaz signed it.

"Now that you've signed this binding contract, I've got something to tell you." Anna said quite seductively as she placed the contract in the folds of her robe, her alluring way of saying it didn't escape Almaz's notice.

"Wh-what is it?" Almaz replied shakily.

"...Actually, I have something to show you..." Anna said after a moment, raising her voice toward the end of the sentence and greatly confusing Almaz as to why she would say she had something to tell him when she didn't- he got his answer why after a second.

"HA HA HA HA HA, Almaz, you're so gullible!"

"That... That can't be..." Almaz said, shocked. Mao stepped out of one of the bathroom stalls, laughing hysterically.

"Yep, it's me! It was _I_ who poisoned your drink and planned with Anna to make you go through all this and sell yourself as her slave for a week, all for nothing!" Mao said between laughs.

"So... this is actually the boys' bathroom!?" Almaz asked, shocked.

"Yes it is, and it's got a 'closed for maintenance' sign on it to make sure no one else came in to ruin my plan; you've used the bathrooms here before, Almaz- at least I would hope so, you've been here over a month!" Mao sneered, making Almaz feel like such an idiot.

_Oh duh! Why am I so stupid!? _Almaz thought as he dropped to his knees.

"Ok Mao, you've got your revenge, good for you." Almaz said, quite glad himself his worries were over, if at some cost.

"Oh no no no no no no no, this is only part 1 of my revenge, there's still much more to come! And this was the simplest of my revenges! I suggest you have fun as Anna's servant while also being my slave, you've got a long way to go before it's over!" Mao said gleefully, and why? His revenge revenge part 1 was a total success- what's not to be happy about?

Almaz cried on the inside until Mao left, then a few tears fell on the outside- which didn't escape Anna's notice.

"I'm sorry, Almaz- it was either me or Sapphire, and I couldn't let you get betrayed by her..." Anna said sympathetically.

_She didn't want Sapphire to betray me? Why is that? *gasp* does she know I have a crush on her!? Well actually, Mao probably told her... she didn't want me to be hurt by my crush... she's nice for a demon... I guess..._

"Maybe, new slave!" Anna said as she skipped out of the bathroom, leaving Almaz in a cloud of confusion.

She's _not that great of a fighter!? That punch nearly knocked my head off! Not to mention she's a damn good actor!_ This finally occurred to Almaz, along with an ironic thought from when he was eating lunch with the delinquents earlier-

_With friends like these... who needs enemies?_

* * *

A.N.- So how's that for something simple for revenge? The poisoned water I had planned, but the bathroom and slavery thing just came to me as I was writing, and I think it turned out damn good, yay improv! Which reminds me, I'm now changing the rating to T... Anna yelling hell and all...


	5. Something Devious

Educational Suicide

A.N.-Wow, it's going to be pretty tough to top that last part of revenge, but I gotta do it, then I gotta do it AGAIN! No worries though, I already got it all planned out, and maybe some cool improv will hit me again like last chapter ^_^ ON WITH THE VENGEANCE!!

* * *

Chapter 5: Revenge, Part 3- Something Devious

"Unpleasant..? No, that's not nearly strong enough to describe what had happened yesterday... maybe something closer to catastrophic? No, that's a bit too much... maybe just a simple summary would suffice- but if you have been paying attention at all that wouldn't be necessary!" Almaz yelled to the ceiling facing him, not like he could do much else, he was strapped down tightly to an operating table.

"Who are you yelling at?" The nurse asked in her soft, kind voice as she walked in with a tray of varied sharp metal utensils to fix Almaz's mouth pains due to the acidic poison Mao and Anna tricked him into drinking yesterday.

"The audience!" Almaz answered happily, as if that was totally normal- obviously it was not.

"Well, I'm not a psychologist, but I'm pretty certain you need to see one..." The nurse said, certain Almaz was going insane due to Mao's impending revenge, which could only get worse and she would inevitably have to see him again later that day.

_Maybe she's right... I'm a tad stressed, but it seems to me that the whole school is just waiting and watching me to see what happens with Mao's revenge... I've even seen some senior and sophomore honor students stalking me- that's when I started to get worried! _Almaz thought as the nurse began to inspect his damaged mouth.

"Hmmm, the damage is extensive and will require a very long and very painful procedure to cure it, so I'm giving you some anesthetics just to be safe, and some morphine for afterwards- since I'm not looking for your permission, good night!" The nurse cheerfully delivered the grim news as Almaz felt a prick in his arm, and he fell unconscious as the nurse began the procedure; all the while taking joy that she was probably the only staff in the whole of Evil Academy that actually did her job, thank goodness for students like Almaz.

* * *

"The nurse did a very good job, I can't feel a thing!" Almaz said as he happily skipped to homeroom for the morning as he did everyday, since this was custom for Mao's class.

Perhaps it was that he was still feeling the effects of the morphine the nurse gave him, but Almaz felt no worries at all- the thought of Mao's revenge came and passed like a leaf falling into a river and into the ocean of happiness, nothing would ruin his day today, at least not within the time the morphine still made Almaz feel like everything was happy and joyous in Evil Academy- not a good sign normally.

Homeroom was quite the opposite of the day before, Mao was in a bad mood- everyone knew that when he kicked the door open and immediately upon entering he jumped on Mr. Redshirt's desk and yelled "SHUT UP!!!" at the top of his lungs, Everyone did so, or risk getting thrown out the 5th story window like Johnathan did yesterday for sneezing, or Cypher for questioning Mao's odd behavior. 2 hours passed, and no one was allowed to leave as Mao sat on his desk with a sour look on his face, simply staring at the back wall away from Mr. Redshirt's desk. Simply staring, even though Almaz was sitting right behind Mao's desk and thus, Mao was looking in Almaz's direction, that's all he was doing- looking in Almaz's _direction_- Mao was looking angrily right above Almaz's head to the back wall, never even moving his eyes the whole time, he was like an angry statue.

Even if Mao had been looking straight at Almaz the whole time, Almaz wouldn't have cared- still he would've smiled the whole time away, which he was doing during the whole silent homeroom.

_Acting scared means he wins! I'll get my own revenge by smiling while he gets his much more... physically painful revenge, just keep smiling and nothing can hurt me!_

Finally, after 2 hours of sitting in silence, finally Mao said "Everyone just get out..." in a very hushed tone, so quietly that Almaz barely heard him, but the whole room being in utter silence (some of the classmates held their breath and only exhaled when they had to, just to be sure to avoid Mao's wrath) everyone simply chose to think that he was dismissing them and collectively they all scurried out of the room as quickly as the bottleneck caused by the small doorway would allow, leaving only Mao to pout alone in the dark.

It took a grand total of 3 minutes and 27 seconds for everyone, including Mr. Redshirt, to exit the room, leaving Mao all alone. Almaz began down the hallway, but took a look back at the door and saw Sapphire, Anna, Raspberyl, Kyoko and Asuka all huddled behind the closed door to see if Mao was still sitting.

Caving in to his curious nature, Almaz quietly ran over and took a look under the closed door; of what little this view allowed, he did see two shoes with legs attached sitting on Mao's desk. All of the girls also tried to get a peek in, and they saw the same thing- Mao was still in his seat glaring at the back wall in the dark.

After almost a minute of waiting for Mao to move at all, the door swung open and there was Mao, wearing only his boxer shorts and furiously looking at the startled group assembled in front of him. Almaz managed a look inside the now lit-up classroom, and where Mao had been sitting was just a dummy with his clothes on that fell uselessly to the floor.

_Strange- evidently while looking like he was sitting still, Mao set up a dummy with his clothes and somehow made his way to the door without any of us noticing... he probably set up the dummy when everyone was leaving, but how did he get to the door? Did he teleport? CAN he teleport? Did he turn himself invisible? CAN he turn himself invisible? Did he crawl through the rafters in the ceiling and jump down in front of the door? CAN he do that?_

"I TOLD ALL OF YOU TO GET LOST!!!" Mao yelled, even louder than he had yelled for everyone to shut up when he entered the room; Almaz and the girls ran down the hallway as fast as their feet could carry them.

* * *

"Mao's got some guts pulling that stunt on us!" Raspberyl said once she was sure Mao was out of earshot.

"Yeah, and what're we going to do, get revenge? He'll tear us to pieces!" Almaz said, somehow his pessimistic attitude overcame the morphine, just for that one sentence, immediately afterward he felt as happy as a child with a new toy on Christmas.

"Let's just forget about it and get on with class." Sapphire said, and everyone nodded.

"Yes, let's all have a good day despite it's... less than good start!" Asuka said cheerfully.

_Yeah... everything's going great today, still I'm feeling so on top of things- I won't let Mao take that away from me! _Almaz thought, the morphine getting to his head again, a bit less than before though- it was beginning to wear off.

"Whatever, I'm feeling hungry- Almaz, go get me something to eat; an apple, and I want it in 5 seconds!" Anna said, and Almaz happily scurried off to find an apple within 10 feet of Anna- there was none, so Almaz wandered off to parts unknown until he finally found an apple conveniently placed on the ground in the middle of the market-place.

Almaz tried to swipe it, but he was too drugged up to focus and he missed it, instead falling to the ground in the process. As Almaz stood up, the three Vato Brothers somehow found their way to him while they were mid-fight with each other about who got the first dibs on a piece of gum.

"No way, holmes, its MINE!"

"What's yours is mine and what's mine is also mine, chico- boss told me that, so it's MINE!"

"Eh hermano, by that logic, it's MINE as well!"

The Vato brothers began to hit each other at Almaz's feet, on more than one occasion they 'accidentally' hit Almaz's shins with their clubs, despite this, Almaz felt no pain still due to the morphine. Finally after a few minutes they finally took their argument somewhere else.

Almaz checked the apple it took him nearly half an hour to find- it suffered no damage from the scuffle, as it was in his hand the whole time and the Vato Brothers were all too short to reach it. Satisfied, Almaz took a single step and was he suddenly hoisted into the air and he found himself looking up at the ground about 15 feet away as he swung through the air, still not at all panicked.

"Wheeee, this is fun!" Almaz cheered as he swung himself back and forth from the rope tied tightly to his legs, students on the ground laughed at him swinging around above them and laughing like a madman, but he took no notice of them.

"eh, how's that holmes!?" One of the Vato brothers yelled to Almaz, who had trouble telling them apart when he _wasn't_ hopped up on morphine and dangling in the air, now it was just impossible, so he didn't try.

"That's what chyou get for double-crossing our boss, chico!" Another Vato Brother yelled, the last one stayed silent, or at least Almaz didn't hear him over his own childish giggling as he continued to swing back and forth. Soon after their taunting ended, all three of the Vato Brothers simply left without letting Almaz down, so he just stayed there.

An hour passed, and everyone finished laughing at Almaz and they all continued to go on with their business, and that means doing nothing under the guise of "not being a delinquent" by doing their work. Eventually the morphine wore off, and Almaz began to feel things other than happiness for the first time that day since the nurse's operation on his mouth- Fear that he was so high up, more fear as to how he was going to get down without going to the nurse's office again with a broken neck, even more fear as to what Mao was planning for his revenge that day, if this was just a plan by the Vato Brothers- so pretty much all he felt was fear.

"ALMAZ! Why are you up there, and WHERE'S THE FOOD I ASKED FOR!?" A voice yelled up to Almaz, it could only be Anna. Almaz noticed that he still clutched the undamaged apple, so he dropped it, hoping it would land perfectly in her hands- it didn't. Almaz heard a splat, like a squishy blob demon was just thrown against the wall, which they often are for fun, but it was so perfectly timed when Almaz dropped the apple that it couldn't have been coincidence.

"WHY!?" A female voice yelled, furious. Almaz looked up (actually down since he was upside-down), and he noticed the apple landed on a passing prism mage's head and splattered like a water balloon filled with applesauce, which got all over her dress, hair and face.

_I reeeeealy wish I hadn't done that... _Almaz thought as he prayed for the best, hoping the mage and god would forgive him- evidently neither did.

"I'm sorry I didn't mean to!" Almaz cried, too late- the mage casted a simple fire spell toward the rope, and down went Almaz from his safe dangling position as the rope snapped under the heat.

_Well if she's this mad at me for dropping that apple on her, maybe she'll send me to the nurse's office and Mao won't get his revenge for today! _Almaz thought as he fell and landed on the stone floor with a loud crash.

Almaz quickly stood up and shook the rope free from his legs, only to find everyone laughing at him, Anna included, and the apple-covered mage grinning evilly, quite proud of herself. Almaz inspected himself, and after _almost_half a second, he realized he was completely naked save for his boxer shorts, courtesy of a quick and devious second spell by the mage.

Panicking, Almaz did the only thing he could think of to do- run to the boy's bathroom not 30 feet and 50 laughing demons away. Shoving demons out of the way, Almaz rushed right through the door, slammed it shut and took a deep breath.

_This is so much worse than yesterday, I wish Mao had gotten his revenge today! _Almaz thought to himself once he caught his breath.

There was a knock at the door Almaz was barricading with his body, when he asked who it was, a feminine voice answered:

"It's Anna, Almaz"

"What do you want?" Almaz said gruffly, he wasn't in the mood to talk to her after that last event.

"Almaz, you're in the wrong bathroom, that's the girl's room." Anna said between barely stifled laughs.

"I'm not falling for that again!" Almaz said proudly as he marched to a sink to wash his face.

_She's just trying to fool me again, but I haven't forgotten last time!_

As Almaz finished drying his face with the sandpaper paper towels demons used for some painful reason, a succubus- Ms. Machiko, no less- walked out of a stall and simply stared at Almaz, who could do nothing but stare back.

"Ummm Almaz, this is actually the girl's room..." Ms. Machiko said with a slight giggle.

Almaz thought for a long time and considered the circumstances he was in, then as he realized the situation he was in, his legs gave in and he slumped to the ground, hopelessly sad.

_Everything's hopeless... Why do I bother trying? Maybe I should just collect what little I have and go back to the human world and live life as a demon hermit; there's nothing more I can do... I should just forget about trying to get my title back, just forget about Mao... just forget... about the princess..._

"Something in your eyes tells me you're sad..." Ms. Machiko said, swaying herself over to Almaz and kneeling down in front of him.

"It's nothing, I should just get out of here..." Almaz said, quietly and defeatedly.

"Oh, don't do that; I don't want to lose one of my favorite students!" Ms. Machiko said as she gave Almaz a big hug, making him feel_ very_uncomfortable being almost naked and being so close to her. Almaz had absolutely nothing to say at that- so much was happening, so fast, and now _this_! Ms. Machiko seemed to sense his tension, so she continued to talk even when he didn't.

"Just because you're so pathetically adorable, I'm going to help you; let's start with some clothes." she said as she waved her right hand in front of Almaz is a very mesmerizing way, Almaz became dizzy just watching her hand move back and forth.

In a cloud of smoke, Almaz found himself fully clothed in a large, bulky prinny suit that made him look like the school mascot.

"A prinny suit? Can't you give me anything better?" Almaz cried, to which Ms. Machiko couldn't help but giggle.

"Aw, but you look so cute! Plus, no one will recognize you when you go out." Ms. Machiko replied. "And now, we need to get you out of here!" As she said this, she again waved her hands toward the wall, which exploded very loudly a moment later, opening a doorway to the boy's bathroom next door and simultaneously scaring off a few of the boys in the room.

"Why are you doing this?" Almaz asked before he took a step.

"Not everyone is afraid of Mao, or at least I'm not; I want to help you, Almaz." Ms. Machiko said, perfectly serious, not with her usual demure voice which again made Almaz feel uncomfortable at this change, despite her efforts to help him.

"Th- Thank you Ms. Machiko." Almaz said gratefully as he bowed deeply to her and ran through the rubble to the hole in the wall.

"Oh, Almaz; Mr. Redshirt was right, you are quite gullible! Gullible indeed, but undeniably brave and caring. Don't give up so easily!"

* * *

Outside of the boy's room, Almaz took a step through the door, quietly to try and sneak back to get some clothes from Mao; which didn't go quite as planned.

A small crowd of demons was huddled outside of the bathrooms, just waiting for Almaz. Once he took his first step, the whole of the crowd saw him in the large prinny suit and a wave of laughter overtook the whole crowd; Almaz noticed that Mao was at the front of the crowd, grinning evilly.

"Oh poor, poor Almaz, I almost feel something like... pity for you." Mao said through the teeth of his smile.

Almaz resigned to this humiliation and calmly walked away from the crowd back to Mao's house, where he changed his clothes. Although he didn't have much of a choice in clothing, since he had no spare clothes with him and Mao only wore his usual red jacket and black shirt, Almaz took one of the spare black shirts and a pair of white shorts.

_How fervently I wish this was all over... Maybe I should just leave... _Almaz thought, his thoughts interrupted by a most unwelcome yet helpful visitor.

"KYAAAAAAA! You can't stop cooking a feast just because a single critic says the appetizer isn't good! You must go with the spirit of cooking in your heart and hands and put the whole of your being into your main course, BOOM! You committed to cook a feast, and a feast you shall make!"

_What? Who said that? How is it that even in my own thoughts I hear voices? Am I going insane? No, perhaps I should listen to that... oddly familiar voice and be resolute! Mao's revenge can't go on much longer, I can take it! For the princess! On a different note, I need some food!_

* * *

A.N.- Well, that was painful making lines for Mr. Champloo; but with everyone else against Almaz, someone had to side with him! The lines aren't very good and they are quite short, but live with it! On a different note, this chapter was soooo difficult to do! I had to type it up twice before I was satisfied, and if you didn't like it, I assure you the other version of this chapter is so much worse!


	6. Determination

Educational Suicide

A.N.- Oh, laziness... I swear someday I'll just get too lazy to get up out of bed to eat, and that'll be how I die! Cheerful, isn't it! But for today, I somehow managed to gather up enough drifting good work ethic to start this chapter, so I'll just go ahead and jump in!

* * *

Chapter 6: Determination

Almaz rushed through the empty hallways to the cafeteria to get something to eat, wondering the whole time where everyone was, usually there was at least a _few_demons spraying graffiti on the walls or harassing a teacher or loitering wherever they felt like loitering at the time, but there was _no one _now.

"I wonder where everyone went... I suppose it's for the best since I'd rather Mao didn't find out I took some of his clothes without permission.." Almaz said, referring to the stolen clothes he was wearing- if not for his face, he would look exactly as Mao usually did- since Mao's only spare clothes Almaz could choose from were all identical to his normal attire.

Almaz hustled into the cafeteria to see a congregation of teachers looting the pantry for what little there was left to eat, immediately once he entered, Ms. Machiko noticed him and swayed herself over to him.

"Hello, Almaz; is there any reason you're here during the teacher's break period?" She asked in her usual demure voice, Almaz answered quickly to avoid another... uncomfortable situation.

"Well, I didn't have any lunch today..."

"Oh, that's right- you were too busy getting humiliated! Which also explains the change of attire... Well anyways there's kinda a sort of riot going on in the kitchen- when the teachers get hungry, they get angry; so it's not really safe to go in there for the next... 20 minutes or so..." Ms. Machiko said, referring to the loud clamoring in the kitchen.

"Are you afraid!?" Almaz blurted, to which surprisingly Ms. Machiko didn't take offense to.

"Well-" She paused "Yes, if I were to enter that room, they'll think I look so delicious they'd have to eat me too~" She joked, to which Almaz was expected to laugh, he did so.

_Ms. Machiko, who's **level 500**, is afraid of that mob! Despite her efforts to hide it with her sexy humor, even I can see that! If it really is that dangerous to her; I probably should take her advice and avoid it, being only a lowly level 45, there's no way I'd survive if she couldn't!_

Just out of curiosity, Almaz glanced into the kitchen to see how bad it was, and he the first thing he saw was a teacher who Almaz didn't recognize getting thrown face-first into the wall, crashing loudly and leaving a crater in the wall but not quite going all the way through. Almaz was frightened, but something about this senseless violence fascinated him, so he watched for a bit longer.

Almaz searched the mob for a familiar teacher, finding Mr. Redshirt, Almaz forcused on him for a moment.

"GET OUT OF MY WAY, DAMN YOU!!" Mr. Redshirt yelled as he was shoved by an unknown golem teacher. Mr. Redshirt punched the golem square in the stomach, which made him crash to the ground like a ton of bricks; Mr. Redshirt's victory was short lived, however, as a female archer Almaz recognized as Ms. Aiko gave him a right cross from behind right into his right temple, knocking him out cold.

"HA! Damn male archers, think they're so great..." Ms. Aiko said to herself, then after taking a single step she tripped over Mr. Redshirt's body and she slammed her head on the concrete floor, knocking her out as well.

_Klutz... I wonder how much longer this can last before someone breaks it up?_

As if he read Almaz's mind for his cue, Kotter-sensei barged through the masonry wall like a hero making his dramatic entrance; then like a rhino in a sheep field, he plowed through the mob of demons, effectively knocking every last one of them to the ground and breaking up the fight.

"FIRST DIBS ARE MINE!!!!" Kotter bellowed as he swiped enough food to feed an army from the pantry and stomped into the cafeteria to enjoy his _feast_. Evidently first dibs was all that mattered, as all of the other teachers depressively got up, brushed themselves off and made a neat, single-file line, got their food and proceeded into the cafeteria.

After about 15 minutes, the other teachers got their food and were all eating in the cafeteria, chatting happily as if they were all old friends.

"That was a quick change!" Almaz said, surprised as he and Ms. Machiko walked in together to gather what little food was left for them, which was surprisingly quite a lot.

"It's like this everyday: irritated group of teachers become angry mob, angry mob gets violent, rioting ensues, then 95% of the time, Kotter breaks up the fight." Ms. Machiko explained as she stealthily swiped a particularly succulent-looking apple off of Almaz's plate without him noticing as he reached for a piece of bread on a high shelf.

"So, what happens the other 5% of the time?" Almaz asked as he searched the floor for the apple he thought he dropped.

"Kotter gets knocked out while trying to break up the fight and everyone still fighting eventually get tired and pass out so the nurse gets first dibs _before_she helps everyone up." Ms. Machiko said, referring Almaz toward where Mr. Redshirt lie. Almaz looked over, and there was the nurse, smiling and icing the large swelling on the right side of his face as she took a big bite of the apple that she stealthily swiped from Ms. Machiko's plate while she answered Almaz's question.

Once Almaz finished gathering his food, then re-gathering more food since Ms. Machiko was too lazy to find food on her own, both of them entered the noisy lunchroom that had about a yelling conversation per pair of teachers going on all at once, the majority of them talking while stuffing their gaping maws with food.

"This seems pretty... social, I figured that teachers would eat alone or be screaming at each other in this demon school!" Almaz noted aloud, expecting a reaction from Ms. Machiko- which he didn't get.

"You shouldn't judge food by how it looks, even the tastiest-looking curry can be filled with just dreams of flavor and watered-down slop!"

"What!? Mr. Champloo?" Almaz said, turning back to find Ms. Machiko gone and Mr. Champloo taking her place, just without any food.

"Almaz, I know what happened _exactly_77 hours and 12 minutes ago- according to my egg timer- when Mao offered the one meal the one you refused to taste, do you remember?" Mr. Champloo asked.

"Ummm... I think so?" Almaz said, barely understanding a word of what he said, but quickly figuring in his head that 72 hours was 3 days ago, plus an extra 5 hours would put Almaz at the meeting that it happened, so that had to be what Mr. Champloo was talking about.

"I've been watching you Almaz, and just as a watched pot never boils, you seem quite... calm for someone who'se going to be a victim of Mao's impending revenge."

"I try not to think about it, I'm actually kind of relieved that it's almost over."

"NO! You can't be satisfied with what Mao is giving you, you should challenge a chef's creation if you think it isn't perfection!" Mr. Champloo said. Taking a hint from Almaz's lost expression, he continued: "Almaz, if you just let Mao hurt you like this then you're letting him win this cookoff! You stepped up against him and now you're retreating back into your shell? NO! If you just let it happen, then he will break your shell and scramble you for breakfast! Fight back, Almaz!"

Almaz took a minute to translate what Mr. Champloo said into a language he could understand; but once he did, Almaz was invigorated.

_He's right! I can't just let this happen, otherwise my moment of standing up for Mao's safety will have been for nothing; he won't have learned a thing! Mao'll just lapse back into being his usual selfish and crazy self, if I stand up to him then maybe it'll make him think about his actions more carefully... It's settled- I'm going to face Mao like a hero would and........? and what? Well, I suppose the words will come to me when the time comes... Get ready, Mao; I won't let you win this!_

_But first I need to get some new clothes..._

* * *

"Worthless trash, all of you! Get out of my sight!" Mao barked, followed by a rapid stampede of demons out of the classroom.

Contemplating the final step for his revenge, Mao had everything figured out but one single detail...

_Useless fodder- None of them could help me in the least bit! Still I need one last item... I just need the fuel to make my revenge perfect! But what can I use..?_

"Trouble finding an ingredient for the main course?"

"Who let you in!? Don't you have a class to teach?" Mao asked Mr. Champloo, who stepped out of the shadows in the dark corner of the classroom.

"That can wait, I am here on improtant business"

"I don't need your help on this! This is something I alone must do" Mao said as he jumped off of his desk and tried to shoo Mr. Champloo away.

"I wasn't here to help, but to guide you to someone who can help you, I know you're struggling with this, Mao." Mr. Champloo said seriously, he had no intention of leaving until after he did what he came for.

"Then you're helping me indirectly, so why? You seem like the kind who would help Almaz be the big hero rather than help the guy who wants him to pay for what he's done." Mao asked, which caused Mr. Champloo to think carefully for a long moment.

"This is something you both need to finish- It isn't healthy to stop eating the meal of revenge before it is all gone, lest the leftovers come back to haunt the both of you. I already showed Almaz to someone who could help him, now as a neutral party, I will show you someone who can help you" Mr. Champloo said, giving Mao a chance to consider his options.

"Fine, I suppose as long as he pays it doesn't matter if someone helped me in the shadows; so who can help me?" Mao asked eagerly.

"Someone who's already helped you, she's been at your side for some time and you've shunned her nearly this whole time..." Mr. Champloo said dramatically, forcing Mao to ask again.

"WHO!?"

"Me, Mao."

"Anna? What can you do for my revenge plan that you haven't already done?" Mao said, a bit louder than he would have liked- Anna seemed a pest to him, she continually offered her efforts to help him despite his refusal- she had helped with the execution of the first part of revenge, and in gathering the data- any more and it would be her revenge and not Mao's.

"I know about your predicament, Mao- and I have a solution that I think you will enjoy..." Anna said as she whispered her devious ideas to Mao, who drooled slightly at her suggestions- they were just that devious and genius.

"Yes, yes- YES! When will it be ready!?" Mao said excitedly while simultaneously wiping the drool off of his face.

"Tomorrow, I'm certain it will be done by then."

"My work here is done, now I just have to see how this feast turns out; BOOM!"

* * *

A.N.- Oooh drama! What's Mao and Anna's devious plan? What's Mr. Champloo's role in all of this? Will Almaz survive this next part of Mao's revenge? does Mao's final phase of his revenge plan involve Sapphire? The answers to all of those are.. MAYBE! Find out next chapter! ^_^

Yeah, this was largely just a filler chapter to lead in to the next chapter, so this'll probably finish with 8 chapters- final revenge and the resolution- I mostly did this chapter to tie up the two loose ends I left, Almaz's failing morale and the lack of Mr. Champloo in this story, writing lines for him may have taken me 3 times longer than the normal characters, but I think it turned out ok!


	7. Slight Miscalculation

Educational Suicide

Author's Note- Almost done at last! Coming up with good revenge ideas is HARD! How does Mao do it? Oh yeah, because I make him! *evil laughter* Anyways, this should be the second-to-last chapter, followed by the resolution so this is probably the last chapter of Mao's revenge, so enjoy!

Post Author's Note- this chapter is MUCH longer than my other chapters, don't say I didn't warn you!

* * *

Chapter 7: Revenge, Part 4- Slight Miscalculation

Homeroom was usual today, at least until the prinny messenger shuffled himself in and handed a letter to Mr. Redshirt (whom everyone was amazed that he had stayed homeroom teacher of Mao's class through this whole ordeal)

Mr. Redshirt was reading the newspaper when the prinny reluctantly tapped his knee; with an annoyed expression on his face, Mr. Redshirt lowered the curtain of newspapers that separated him from his class, who were all sitting quietly at his command 30 minutes ago. The prinny handed him the letter, then tried to leave quietly when Mr. Redshirt decided to pick up the prinny and throw it violently into the hallway, where it promptly exploded as it was expected to, completely shattering what was once a silent atmosphere.

All of the students raised their eyes for a moment, then promplyreturned their focus to whatever had been holding their attention for the past 30 minutes, whether it be a book they brought or simply a piece of dirt on the floor that they decided to look at because it was something to look at- this sort of cruelty to the messenger prinnys was fairly common, almost a daily event, it didn't faze them anymore.

Mr. Redshirt opened the letter, after finishing he then feelt like ruining the silence at his students' very divided attentions, he took a deep, very audible breath and screamed at the top of his lungs:

"AAAAAAAAAAAALMAAAAAAAAZ!"

From the sheer volume of his voice, most of the class became disheveled and some of the weaker students fell right out of their seats, Anna included.

"Yes, teacher?" Almaz said quietly, like a mouse facing a lion.

"Kotter-sensei demands your presence in a manner most... demanding would be the only word for it, so please collect your things and proceed to his room down the hallway." Mr. Redshirt said calmly as he watched the class pick themselves up from his calamity.

Almazquietly collected his sword, being his only possession he brought to class, and proceeded to the door when the room began to rumble. It was a low rumble, then it suddenly got louder and the room shook more, all leading up to the point when a massive figure bursted through the doorway, knocking it in along with half of the wall and poor Almaz was sent straight to the ground several feet away.

"WHAT IS WITH ALL OF THE YELLING?" Kotter-sensei boomed once the dust cleared.

"Oh, I was just waking up my students after a _thrilling_ lesson on the nature of _dirt on the ground_!" Mr. Redshirt yelled, not angrily as he threw an eraser into the crowd of students still recovering from the 'explosion' that Kotter-sensei caused with his entrance; someone said 'ow', but who was unknown.

"WHERE IS ALMAZ?" Kotter boomed as he frantically searched the room, not noticing Almaz was the damaged husk of a man on the ground in front of him; if Kotter took one step forward, it was all over for Almaz.

Almaz quickly jumped up and into Kotter's field of view, who grabbed him by the legs and began to drag him into the hallway; Almaz, not very willing to be dragged so violently, frantically searched for something to grab onto, but the only things he could grab being a flat floor or an overturned desk he couldn't quite reach, Almaz simply accepted it as he was dragged through the wooden-floored hallway and into Kotter's concrete-floored private office.

Kotter swung Almaz over his head, scraping the tip of his hair across the ceiling then finally slamming him into a very cushy armchair on the other side of a battered wooden desk that was completely covered in various wrappers, boxes, and other miscellaneous trash piled so high Almaz wondered if Kotter could see him past all of it, because Almaz couldn't see Kotter's face past it.

"ALMAZ, do you know why I've brought you here?" Kotter began immediately once he smashed the carefully built pile to let them see each other and then he sat down on his much larger and much more cushy looking chair.

"Ummm, does it have something to do with yesterday?" Almaz guessed, figuring there wouldn't really be any other reasons that made today any different.

"Yes, yesterday..." Kotter drifted off, expecting Almaz to say something- both of them were thinking the same thing, about Almaz's... lack of clothing in the middle of a public area the day before.

"I'm sorry for my... appearance yesterday, it was an accident!" Almaz pleaded, hoping to avoid any more punishments for the day and to just get Mao's out of the way and return everything to the way it once was- at least then he could make progress to leaving Evil Academy and going back to the human world with the princess, never in a million years would Almaz expect what happened next...

"YOU'RE SORRY! FOR WHAT? Oh, that's right- you're still part _human_... Well since you've been here a while you should know, Almaz, that public nudity is a most impressive act that even the greatest of honor students here at Evil Academy would dare to commit! Most demons are a bit too afraid, it is because of this that I brought you here to offer my heartfelt congratulations on making the high honor roll for this semester, a privilege that **only **future demon lords, demon senators, and even future overlords have exclusively achieved." Kotter replied, to which Almaz could not.

_High Honor roll, really? Does that make me an honor student, like a better honor student than Mao? I wonder..._

"Has Mao ever gotten on the high honor roll?" Almaz asked.

"Well... Mao is a _special _case- he's earned it last year, but since he didn't show up at all last year, we couldn't give it to him; so the answer would be something like 'yes and no'." Kotter explained.

"Who else is on the high honor roll this year?" Almaz asked, feeling odd that he was essentially being given a reward and he had so many questions to ask rather than feeling glad.

"Hmmmm, actually... I CAN'T TELL YOU!" Kotter screamed right in Almaz's face, showering him in golem saliva in the process. Kotter then stood up, grabbed Almaz with his massive hand and rolled him out into the hallway like a bowling ball for some reason, probably because he felt like it and he had nothing more to say, or he just didn't like Almaz asking questions.

_Why must demons be so senselessly violent toward me and only me? Even if it's because I'm human, why isn't Sapphire getting any of this? Not that it would matter, I'd stop them if they were! Or at least take the brunt of it for her... _Almaz thought as he flew through the air and slammed against a wooden wall, barely going through it and ending up coughing up dust in the same room he had just left not 5 minutes ago.

"Ah, Almaz, so nice of you to rejoin us just as we are leaving- by the looks of it your visit to Kotter must have been... stimulating." Mr. Redshirt said as he carefully stepped over Almaz through the hole in the wall created by his entrance, most of the class following in suit.

"Get up, servant; we have work to do." Mao's familiar voice barked as a pair of shoes stopped themselves in Almaz's face. Almaz quickly stood up and faced Mao.

"Listen, Mao-"

"Whatever you have to say either can wait or I don't want to hear it at all- take your pick."

"Mao I really think that-"

"DON'T CARE! Like I said, we have work to do- I'm working on a lead to open my heart so meet me at the dimensional gate in 10 minutes, ALL OF YOU!" Mao yelled, gaining the attention of the students that were down the hallway that just left homeroom.

_I wonder what Mao's so eager for... I guess I'll find out, and since I've really nothing else to do now-_

"!" Anna's familiar voice whined from the classroom, the relative volume completely unnecessary since there was only about 12 feet between her and Almaz.

"Yes, what is it?" Almaz asked as he stormed into the room with a worried expression across his face, only to see her still sitting at her desk.

"I don't feel like walking, carry me."

"... could you repeat that..?"

"I SAID CARRY ME!"

"You're joking, right?"

"You wish, slave!"

_I soooo hate being her slave, she's so much worse than Mao!_

"Fine..." Almaz capitulated, slowly he dragged his feet over to Anna's desk and carefully slid one arm under her legs and the other around her back, and he picked her up just as simple as that, noticing she was much lighter than she looked, or maybe Almaz was just stronger than he thought- or maybe both.

"So... why am I doing this..?" Almaz asked once he stepped carefully over the rubble from the hole in the wall.

"Because you're my slave and because I said so. Now, bring me to the Nurse's Office!" Anna said as she made a sort of 'giddy up' motion with her hands.

"Do we have time for that?" Almaz asked as he hastened his pace while simultaneously ignoring all of the giggling freshmen around him.

"We have 10 minutes, that's plenty of time if you HURRY UP!" Anna said, slapping Almaz's cheek as if to say he was still to slow.

_So I have to carry her while she talks to the nurse? This is so unfair..._

* * *

Despite how obviously loud and conspicuous the laughing freshmen were, Anna either didn't notice or pretended not to- not that it mattered, they were laughing at Almaz, anyways. Even as Almaz finally entered the private sanctum of the nurse's office, the laughing didn't leave him- even the nurse couldn't help but giggle.

"Hello Anna and Almaz, what can I help you with?"

"Almaz, put me on that bed and go away- this is girl's time now." Anna commanded casually, Almaz followed her command.

After setting Anna down, Almaz slipped out of the nurse's office without another word, mostly to avoid another one of Anna's commands. Curiously, though, Almaz couldn't help but eavesdrop on their conversation- it had to involve Almaz or otherwise he wouldn't have been shooed.

"My foot's broken, can you fix it in the next... 7 minutes?" Anna asked the nurse once she thought Almaz was out of earshot.

"Certainly, since you're in the nursing club and you're such a good assistant, I'll do it for free."

_Her foot's broken? How did that happen? It was fine earlier! And why didn't she tell me? Wait... her desk is in the top corner next to the wall so... a piece of rubble probably broke it from my entrance... So it's my fault... But still why did she keep that from me? Did she not want me to feel guilty? Usually demons look for any chance to hurt my feelings, and the one time it's something I caused, she keeps that from me? I don't think I'll ever figure demons out..._

Almaz decided that nothing more would be gained if he continued to listen, so he left with a good feeling- not to hear the conspiracy that followed that probably would've ruined his good mood.

"So, is the potion ready?" Anna asked

"It was a rush job, but I guarantee the success; who are you going to give it to?" The nurse replied, removing a vial filled with what looked like clear water from a hot plate and carefully setting it down to cool.

"Hmmmm... I'm not so sure anymore..."

"Well whomever you give it to, they are very lucky that it was you that gave it to them."

Both of them cackled evilly, then the nurse proceeded to wrap Anna's foot in bandages as Anna whimpered in pain.

* * *

"Glad you all could make it... I think..." Mao said as he glanced over the few volunteers that actually showed up at the gate- just himself, Almaz, Anna, Sapphire, Kyoko and Jethro- the warrior that transferred into Mao's class last-minute.

"So, why are we here?" Jethro asked bluntly, not like he really cared.

"I've found another lead to open my heart!" Mao announced.

"And why should I care?" Jethro asked, still not caring.

_He's got a good point, why does he care? This is all essentially for my benefit to get my title back, no one else is really getting anything out of it._

"You should care because my report on your behavior depends on it!" Mao barked back, giving Jethro a moment to let it sink in what that meant.

What it meant was that as Freshmen Class Leader, Mao could write a report about how a student in his class behaved- good or bad, and in the case of a good report a student could be seen as a delinquent, and such reports often end up in the hands of the PTA, which leads to many weeks of brainwashing and hard labor to get them back on the path to being an Honor Student- all by a single piece of paper, it doesn't even matter if it ws the truth.

"Alright, alright I'll go with you on your... adventures." Jethro finally said after he processed what Mao was talking about.

"Excellent, now for where we are going: After much research I finally found the link between love and the heart! Allowing oneself to love means their heart is open to that person, item or whatever else people love; so if I could get something that people... love, then it could give me a clue on how to open my heart! Simple right?" Mao explained while carefully keeping himself from drooling at his own genius in the process.

"So... what does that mean for us?" Jethro asked, still not really caring.

"Don't use that tone of voice with me! Don't forget several weeks worth of hard labor and brainwashing for you is just a simple stroke of the pen away!" Mao shot back, producing immediate results as Jethro perked himself up and produced a most ridiculous fake smile.

"What is means is that I need another piece of data to finally conclude my research, something that people who love each other give; a **flower**- but not any ordinary flower! I need a _special_ flower, the _alpha_-flower! And since flowers are an eyesore to most demons, the only flower that can be found anywhere in Evil Academy that isn't fake is in the Academy's desert!" Mao continued, again giving everyone a minute to let it sink in what that meant- a trip to the desert.

Everyone inevitably whined and Mao inevitably ignored their whining and commanded them to be glad they were serving someone as great as he- business as usual, in other words.

"Young master, I must advise that you take extra travelling provisions with you on your journey, the desert is a dangerous place and even with my vast network of portals, I can only open up one in the desert, which is quite far away from the oasis of the desert where the desert flowers grow; travel will take some time." Geoffery said, appearing out of thin air in front of the portal gate.

"Right you are, Geoffery. Since the desert is, well, a desert, we'll need to stock up on provisions- namely, food and water- which I already gathered in the last 10 minutes, during which the rest of you were probably goofing off- my 1.8 million E.Q. already foresaw this problem and was well prepared. For this trip, these provisions will be carried exclusively by Anna, comments?"

"WHAT? I can't carry all that!" Anna cried, Mao ignored her.

_Well, I suppose it doesn't matter, I'll just order Almaz to carry it! _Anna thought deviously, a slight smile giving away her intentions.

"Oh, and before you think of ordering Almaz to carry it- don't bother, as his official master I overrule any such order, you will carry it all, Anna."

"THIS IS SO UNFAIR! I can't carry all this in the desert heat! Damn damn DAMN that MAO!" Anna cursed, barely keeping it above a whisper.

_It's difficult to take a side here... while Mao is kinda being a jerk about it, he's right that Anna should carry the food and water, since whomever carries it will have to be protected in the chance of an attack and since we have to protect Anna anyways, so why not kill two birds with one stone? _Almaz thought, but his good conscience prevailed in the end he willingly took just over half of the food for the trip, totalling about an eighth of the load.

Once all of the travel provisions were gathered up, Geoffrey opened the portal and stepped aside, giving his last wishes for a most... eventful trip as he bowed and everyone stepped through the portal.

* * *

"DAMN IT'S HOT!" Jethro felt the need to call out, it was totally unnecessary- not only did everyone else fully realize it was hot, but it's been hot for the past 3 hours of the travel from the portal.

"OF COURSE IT'S HOT YOU IDIOT! ANYONE NOT IN A COMA COULD'VE FIGURED THAT OUT!" Mao yelled back just after wiping the sweat off of his forehead, also unnecessary, more replaced it within seconds.

"Just tryin' to make conversation..." Jethro said as he took an extra-large leap forward and sunk about a foot into the soft sand, everyone watched as he wrestled himself free after a minute or so.

_Everyone is cranky from all this heat... let's hope we find that flower before we all decide to kill each other- If we do kill each other, I think Jethro's gonna die first... WHAT? I shouldn't think such thoughts... think positive! We'll certainly make it before long!_

"Whoever's doing it, stop the damn positive thinking! It makes me sick" Mao yelled.

_I hate it when he does that... _Almaz thought as his mind returned to the thought of Mao's revenge for the day.  
_There's no way that he's going to be able to engineer another clever revenge in this desert heat, maybe he'll skip today's revenge... At least I hope so..._

"I need some water!" Sapphire announced suddenly, ruining Almaz's train of thought.

"You don't need to announce it just get some from ANNA!" Mao yelled, more as a call to attention since Anna was only half-conscious while she was walking, immediately she propped herself up to attention, removed the excessively large pack that was used to keep the water cold, and she began to search inside it for water.

The water inside the pack was carefully rationed, with each person getting 6 bottles of water a day for a week. A week's worth of water for one person would total to 42 bottles, times 6 people, Anna had to carry a total of 252 bottles of water, which very rapidly got lighter by the hour. At it's peak point (the beginning) the water weighed a total of about 176 pounds at half a pound each, coupled with a nearly equally heavy weight of half of the total food, Anna was dragging along much more than _twice_ her weight in travel provisions, not carrying, dragging.

Anna searched the pack for Sapphire's bundle of water, which was apparantly lost in the mounds of everyone else's water bundles, so she searched for a minute before Mao got angry at her keeping the group from moving due to her poor searching skills.

"What's taking so long? I'll find it myself if your too stupid!" Mao barked as he approached her, everyone else took a seat, all expecting this to take a while.

"I don't appreciate you calling your _pack mule _stupid..." Anna said, softly but with enough volume for everyone to hear.

"Did you lose it or something?" Mao whispered once he was right next to her, careful not to let anyone hear him and her speak of their conspiracy.

"I have it here, but I also figured you wanted some water too, so I got you over here without calling you over, which you probably would've thought I was ordering you and you would've yelled at me." Anna whispered as she tossed Sapphire her water and simultaneously offered Mao a water, who at first was too stubborn to take it, being tricked by her in such a way; but in the end he swiped it out of her hand.

"You've got some nerve talking to me like that, but you're probably right. You seem to know me better than I expected... Perhaps you arent as much of a pest as I thought you were" Mao said, afterward he raised the water to his lips, but stopped and watched with a satisfied smirk as Sapphire took a single drink from her water and it was all drained within seconds; Anna, meanwhile, was virtually comatose at what Mao had said.

_He complimented me... He doesn't hate me! Is this what love feels like? Why do demons hate love so much if it feels this good? *gasp* I gave him the potion!_

"Mao, wait!" Anna cried, too late.

Mao took a healthy drink from his water, half of which he spit out.

"You gave me-... the wrong... damn..." Mao began to yell, but something overcame him before he could finish. Mao suddenly dropped his half-empty water in the sand and clutched his head with one hand and his chest with the other.

"Damn you Anna..." Mao said weakly as he collapsed. Everyone rushed over to see if he was ok, with the exception of Jethro who rushed over to see if there was anyhting valuable to take before he split, there wasn't, so he just returned to sitting down in the hot sand.

"What did you give him?" Sapphire inquired a bit angrily.

"You don't want to know; but I assure you he'll wake up... I just pray he'll have forgotten by then..."

* * *

_What's going on..?_

_I think I drank the potion..._

_Did she mix them up..? Or did she do this on purpose?_

_I think I'm feeling better, way better! Things don't seem as... cloudy as before... I don't think I've ever felt this good!_

"Hey everyone, he's waking up!" A female voice cried, it could only be Anna's, followed by a small stampede of footsteps in the sand, but they didn't seem to come too close.

Mao sat up in the makeshift bed he was in (a blanket knitted last-minute by Kyoko on top of the sand), opened his eyes and glanced at his surroundings in his blurred vision.

The first thing Mao noted was that it was night, and in his tired mind he pulled forth the thought that desert nights are _very_ cold, but it didn't seem so cold now, not while _she_ was here.

"Anna..? Is that you?" Mao asked in a raspy voice, his throat was burning and dry, and he tasted sand in the back corners of his mouth.

"Mao... how... how are you feeling?" Anna asked, more than a little nervously.

"Better, now that I know you're here." Mao said as he pulled Anna into a very, _very _close embrace, Anna did nothing to stop him, her hands limply hanging at her sides and a surprised expression on her face.

"What? Is that still the same Mao as before?" Almaz asked, voicing everyone else's thoughts.

"Not... not really, you see, it's a funny story really, but that water was laced... with a love potion..." Anna said, still in Mao's arms.

"You're kidding, right?" Almaz asked, Anna shook her head no.

Mao pulled Anna closer, Anna was very visibly shaking and looked quite scared at this new Mao, who noticed her tension and again pulled her closer.

"Uh, Mao, can you ease up a bit, I can't breathe..." Anna coughed, Mao evidently ignored her as he pulled her in closer and tightened his grip.

"I won't let go of you, Anna; never again." Mao said in a especially seductive voice no one had heard before as he again pulled her closer, making her cough a little- she couldn't breathe at all now. Mao closed his eyes and smiled, he seemed to be enjoying how close he was to Anna, who was far from enjoying this awkward and painful situation.

"Mao, maybe you should let up a bit..." Almaz said, concern evident, but he wasn't sure for whom.

Anna coughed again, and suddenly Mao's facial expression changed from lover's happy to his usual angry-happy as he once more tightened his grip and stood up, lifting Anna into the air as well.

"Try to poison me with that love-potion will you? You'll regret that! Revenge for you is as simple as 1, 2, 3!" Mao sneered, letting go with his right hand and grasping his sheathed sword with it, still maintaining a tight grip on Anna with the other, who was too shocked and weak to break free.

"1..."

"Mao, don't! Please!" Anna screamed, no one seemed in a big hurry to stop Mao- if he was this mad now, if anyone tried to stop him, there'd be hell to pay.

"2..." Mao said, letting go of Anna with his left hand. Anticipating she would try to run, Mao grabbed her left arm with his free hand, again pulling her in close but this time she was facing away from him; Mao then placed his sword at her neck level, not 3 inches in front of her, poised to deliver the killing slice.

"STOP, I'M SORRY!" Anna screamed, her cries fell on deaf ears.

"and... 3!" Mao called, his words dripping with sadistic excitement at her panic.

Mao let go of Anna, who carefully ducked under his sword as she quickly ran in terror away from him; Mao again anticipated her movements and as she moved away, Mao sliced downward- perfectly hitting his target.

Mao didn't cut Anna with the sword, and after she ran far enough so she was sure she was out of his grasp or sword range, she turned and saw him, noticing his clothes were liberally covered in golden-blonde hair and a deadly smirk played across his face.

"You didn't..." Anna said, tears welling up in her eyes as she frantically ran her hands through her hair, which was now not much longer than Almaz's hair, her hair now suddenly ending just above her neck, looking like someone cut it with a dull butter knife.

"It's no secret that girls love their hair, so for trying to make me love you forcefully, you lose your hair- if only Almaz's revenge were that simple, we probably wouldn't be here." Mao said, directing his view to Almaz, who was still shaking at the events that just unfolded in front of him. Mao's smile disappeared, and he looked around at everyone else, all of them were either surprised or scared.

"Since this trip was essentially for nothing but revenge, I think I've got that; so let's just go back." Mao commanded, as he started to walk away, everyone but Anna followed, Almaz picked up the large pack of water and food.

"Come with us or stay here, I don't care anymore- either way you're out of our class when we get back." Mao called back to Anna. Tears flowing like a waterfall, Anna didn't move a muscle.

_Now he hates me more than ever! WHY did I think giving him the potion was a good idea? Stupid! __**Stupid**__! __**STUPID**__!_

Again caving in to his sympathy, Almaz quickly walked back to Anna.

"Are you alright?" Almaz asked.

Anna didn't immediately answer, she had to wipe away her tears and quiet her sobbing first.

"Carry me..." Anna said, more of as a request than an order to her servant. Almaz rolled his eyes, shifted the pack on his back so his arms were comfortable, and picked her up without a word of complaint.

No one spoke another word the whole trip back.

* * *

A.N.- wow, this was MUCH longer than I thought it would be! I expected it to be long, but not quite THIS long! I congratulate anyone who has read this whole chapter, and I give another congratulations to those who did it in one sitting! I assure you, I couldn't do the same.  
Anyways, a tragic ending to Mao and Anna's final revenge plan, but the resolution will wrap it all up quite nicely and with minimal hair injury, I assure you all.


	8. All's Well?

Educational Suicide

A.N.- Alright, last chapter! So I'll just shut up and let you read!

* * *

Chapter 8: All's Well...?

In homeroom the next day, all was normal. Conversations were being carried out as normal, students in the back were doodling on their desks as usual. The only unusual anything in the room was the pile of ashes on Anna's empty desk- in once was a bouquet of flowers for her leaving, a flower from each student was placed in cheap wrapping paper, but when Mao put in his flower, the bouquet 'mysteriously' bursted into flames, which is when Anna stormed out with all of her equipment and mana that she was supposed to give to Mao when she left.

Finally summing up the will to do it, Almaz stood up and approached Mao's desk, the room seemed to suddenly become heavy with tension.

"Mao, I think we need to talk about yesterday." Almaz stated, quite plainly, seriously, and resolutely- he wasn't going to let Mao just casually brush him off again.

"What's there to talk about? I think yesterday went quite well!" Mao said, gritting his teeth in the process, the telltale sign of a big lie.

"About what you did to Anna, that was just overly cruel, even for you."

"She fed me a LOVE POTION! Do you have any idea what it's like for a demon to love, especially being _forced_ to love?"

"No... I can't say that I do have an idea about what that's like"

"Then you'd have to take my word for it that I was actually being quite generous to her for it."

"Well, whatever, that's not what I wanted to talk about anyways; that potion's been bothering me, was it going to be a part of you revenge for the day?"

"Oh, yeah; I forgot about that, well it was supposed to be given to Sapphire, then she would've fallen in love with whomever made the potion- which was Anna, and watching her confess her love to Anna and not you would've crushed you on the inside, but you could never tell her that, could you? Thus, making it the perfect revenge- at least until Anna ruined it. I don't know if Anna gave me the potion on purpose or accident, but she gave me the potion and evidently I didn't drink enough of it to have a serious effect so I just shook it off and punished her for her betrayal or stupidity, whichever it was."

"So you punished her for having a crush on you or for making a mistake? How is that fair?"

"FAIR? LOOK AROUND YOU, FAKE HERO! When you look around this school, does the word 'fair' ever pop into your head? This school sends ASSASSINS to deal with students that aren't doing what they're supposed to- delinquents."

"Right, I forgot..."

"But this all leaves a loose end- what happens to you?"

"You let me go, considering I did all this for your benefit?"

"HA! No; but I figure something simple will suffice, nothing convoluted like I've been using."

"And that means..?"

"A fight to the death! Grab your sword and armor, Fake Hero- we've got a score to settle" Mao challenged as he walked out of the classroom, motioning for Almaz and the rest of the class to follow him.

_How is this at all better? At least it's not a real fight to the death, I'm sure the nurse will help the loser..._

"Coming, Fake Hero?"

_Not like I have a choice... _Almaz thought as he followed Mao

* * *

The whole of the freshmen class gathered in the gym, clearing a circle about 15 feet in diameter for Mao and Almaz to fight.

The air was filled with tension, tension and calls for betting from Mr. Redshirt, most of the freshmen put their money on Mao; but once Mr. Redshirt finished counting his money, the betting was closed and the room was silent.

"So you're really going through this, Fake Hero?" Mao challenged, slipping his arms out of his traditional red jacket to show he meant business.

"I don't want to, but if this is what it takes to teach you a lesson, I'll do it." Almaz replied resolutely- no backing out now.

"Then we begin" Mao announced, mostly as an order for everyone else to shut up, they did so.

Immediately Mao charged with a simple downward slash, Almaz met his blade above his head with a block and countered with a quick stab. Mao stepped to the side, dodging the stab then he did his own counter by punching Almaz in the stomach, which sent the Hero reeling back just enough to dodge the follow-up slash from Mao. Both of them stepped back for a momentary rest.

"Cheap shot, Mao" Almaz taunted, mentally blaming his pending demon status on that.

"All's fair in love and war, you should know that by now, Fake Hero." Mao retorted, ending with another charge.

This time Almaz struck first, beginning an odd-looking cycle-dance between the two: one of them quickly struck, the other blocked said strike and countered, the other blocked and countered, then the cycle started over and continued for about 2 straight minutes, not accomplishing anything but boring the audience and making them both tired.

Both stepped back again, both breathing heavily.

"Alright, let's just get this over with!" Mao yelled as he charged forward much faster than the last 2 times.

Mao swung as forcefully as he could, breaking his own sword once it made contact with Almaz's, but sending the Hero staggering back from the sheer force and to avoid the shards of metal that rained on him from Mao's broken sword. Not stopping there, Mao took a big step toward Almaz, who tried to make a quick slash to stop him; Mao anticipated this and slapped Almaz's sword out of his hand and into an audience member's chest. Mao grabbed Almaz by the neck and lifted him off of his feet. Mao's hand began to glow with dark energy, following the familiar motiong of his special move, Blast Finger.

"You've lost hero, any last words?" Mao asked, expecting some sort of long-winded heroic final words from Almaz, who stayed silent; irritated, Mao continued his attack.

"BLAST FING-"

_BANG!_

Mao dropped Almaz, who was caught unprepared by the events unfolding in front of him.

"AGGGHHHH! WHO THE HELL SHOT ME?" Mao said, clutching his hand and frantically searched the crowd for a gun, he found none.

"Up here, chump!" A cowgirl-sort of voice called from the rafters.

Everyone looked up and a spotlight from nowhere was shined up to the ceiling, and there was an unknown female gunslinger with a .44 magnum smoking in her hand looking quite proud of herself.

"Who the hell are you?" Mao yelled as the gunslinger jumped down from her perch.

"You don't recognize me, do ya?" She yelled back, carefully aiming her gun at Mao, but not firing yet.

"There's only one person who would take all this effort to injure me, you're Anna, right? Or at least a friend of Anna's" Mao asked, not really asking since he was sure he was right.

"Damn right I'm Anna, I transmigrated to a gunner, sold all my equipment and bought a gun, I was aiming for your head, but I still need some practice with it, I guess." Anna said back.

_She still sounds kinda like her old self, she must've transmigrated like, an hour ago! I'm pretty sure if she didn't ambush us when we're both tired mid-fight she'd never be able to win, she's still only level 1._

Anna shot both Mao's and Almaz's legs to immobilize them with the remaining 4 bullets, the crowd cheering for her, enjoying the drama that was unfolding. With a shaky hand, she reloaded, she clearly didn't have much experience with the gun, but carefully she aimed between Mao and Almaz.

"So, who wants to die first?" Anna challenged.

"Like I care, just get it over with." Mao snorted, followed by a shot to his head, Almaz's shot following not a second later.

"Whoo! Level up!" Anna cheered as she went straight to level 35 after felling both Mao and Almaz.

Silence followed, but not for long. Looking aobut the room and noticing all of the eyes on her, Anna leaped off of the 'stage' and out the door, more silence, again not for long.

"Anna wins! So I keep all the money, HA!" Mr. Redshirt cheered as he took the suitcase full of money and fled the scene, followed by a mob of angry demons, leaving only Raspberyl, Kyoko, Asuka, and the corpses.

"I guess you should call the nurse while I give them first-aid..." Raspberyl said depressively, Kyoko and Asuka rushed out to get the nurse.

* * *

The next day, everyone marched into homeroom just the same, except Mao and Almaz, both covered in surgical gauze, had to very carefully maneuver themselves in to avoid hitting anywhere that got shot- walking was especially tough for the both of them, their legs were covered in gauze from their knees to their thighs.

"So, no hard feelings?" Almaz asked Mao as they carefully turned into the aisle between the desks.

"Nah, we're even." Mao said as he carefully lowered himself onto his desk chair using his one good arm.

"I agree, thank you." Almaz said contently as he walked past Mao to his desk, which was now gone- gone like a vortex opened up in the classroom and took his and only his desk with it, then took it to parts unknown.

"Um, Mao; where's my desk?" Almaz asked.

"It's been moved, ask Mr. Redshirt where it is." Mao grinned evilly.

Almaz approached Mr. Redshirt, who overheard the conversation and was looking on his seating chart for Almaz.

"Your desk was moved to the dumpster outside the school." Mr. Redshirt said after a moment.

"You're joking, right?" Almaz asked, Mr. Redshirt shook his head and showed Almaz the seating chart, it showed everyone's desk except Almaz's in the classroom, represented by a large rectangle labelled 'classroom', and Almaz's desk was outside of the rectangle in another smaller rectangle labelled 'cafeteria dumpster'.

"How unlucky, I hear today's lunch is spinach and rat stew- the one lunch the cafeteria staff seem to enjoy cooking- happy studying!" Mr. Redshirt exclaimed, Almaz switched his attention to Mao.

"Why? I thought you said you were done with the convoluted scemes for revenge!" Almaz cried.

"I also said we were even, and you agreed; have fun studying the nature of spinach and rat soup-vomit this lunch period, Almaz!" Mao sneered.

_At least I now know he actually knows my name, not just 'Fake Hero'_

Almaz walked out of the classroom sulking, outside he was greeted by Mr. Redshirt and Mr. Champloo.

"Well, Almaz I think you've learned your lesson- always vote in favor of your betters." Mr. Redshirt said warmly.

"I quite adamantly disagree, but I will respect a fellow chef's style of cooking, Mr. Redshirt." Mr. Champloo said; Mr. Redshirt, not wanting to hear anymore of Mr. Champloo's ridiculous speech about food, simply smiled and nodded without replying.

"Thank you both for your help, but do I really have to sit at a desk in a dumpster?" Almaz asked.

"Don't worry, I'll be sure to change your seat within... 2 weeks or so, and I'm sure by then the smell won't become a part of you permanently." Mr. Redshirt said with great confidence in himself.

"2 _weeks_! I don't think I can last that long in a dumpster!" Almaz cried.

"Almaz, you should see this as an _opportunity_ to see the world from a different angle, one no one has dared to look from before, it's just the same as cooking a new meal from scratch, without a recipe to follow!"

"WOULD YOU CAN IT WITH THE FOOD TALKING!" Mr. Redshirt exploded.

"Don't worry, Almaz; as a student on the high honor roll, I'll be sure to speed up the process of changing your seat back to 1 week!" Kotter-sensei said as he appeared from his room down the hall.

"I'll help out, too; I'll let you borrow some of my perfumes to make the smell less... unbearable." Ms. Machiko said, also appearing from seemingly nowhere.

"Wow, thanks everyone; but why are all of you helping me?" Almaz asked

"We're teachers- no, _demon_ teachers, and as _demon_ teachers we have to teach students to be the best demons they can be, and Mao needs to learn a few lessons himself, so anyone who helps us, we help too!" Mr. Redshirt explained.

"Th- Thank you all!" Almaz said gratefully as he bowed to them, a motion of courtesy which they all returned.

"Now, go sit down, Almaz- homeroom's about to start." Mr. Redshirt said, Almaz followed his directions.

Almaz was feeling good at all of the support he had, which lasted all the way until he saw his desk in the dumpster already covered in demon vomit from the students that elected to eat lunch early.

_Think of the positives, think of the positives, THINK OF THE POSITIVES!... Nevermind, there is no positive to this! I'm shot and bandaged up from head to toe and I'm knee-deep in demon vomit... I so wish I hadn't voted nay..._

* * *

A.N.- WHOO, I'm FINISHED! Just because that feels so good to type, I'll do it again: I'M FINISHED!  
Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed typing it; personally I liked my own writing in the beginning, then it reached it's peak in the middle, and the ending kinda dropped the ball, but that's just my own opinion, maybe you people will like the ending better than I did.


End file.
